Paving a Pathway to Prosperity

Policymakers from all parties and backgrounds often share the goal of ensuring prosperity, good health, and overall wellbeing for all communities and people. Our country’s public benefits, tax, and health coverage programs are critical to achieving these goals. Yet, even with good intentions and promising first steps, many social protection programs need greater investments if we are to succeed in promoting and achieving economic security and opportunity for all.

In a new series of fact sheets, we examine the federal policies and programs enacted in 2020, 2021, and 2022 that swiftly and dramatically reduced poverty and hardship, narrowed racial disparities, and improved long-term outcomes for children and families. Of course, our nation’s work is far from over. To that end, we also lay out CLASP’s legislative priorities for the final weeks of this Congress in a new blog.

Even before the pandemic began in 2020, young people were being ignored and overlooked in public policymaking. To capture that, we analyzed data related to Economic Justice, Healing and Wellbeing, and Safe Communities for youth and young adults. Nearly three years later, CLASP and A New Deal for Youth’s latest data portrait show that the work is still not done.

The 2021 Child Tax Credit expansions demonstrated that monthly cash payments provided with little administrative burden effectively reduce child poverty and food insecurity. Congress allowed these payments to lapse at the end of 2021 but can restore them now. Federal policymakers shouldn’t provide corporations with tax relief unless they help families.