John,

Before the New Year, Congress passed a $1.7 trillion spending bill that increased funding for many human needs programs. But a glaring omission was the lack of the expanded Child Tax Credit. We’re grateful for our allies in Congress who held strong and opposed over $600 billion in corporate tax cuts, providing us with leverage to pass the expanded Child Tax Credit this year.

We know there will be pressure on Congress to revive the corporate tax cuts. But it remains essential to stand firm: no tax breaks to wealthy corporations without investing in children and families. Write a letter to President Biden urging him to use his bully pulpit to continue the fight for the expanded Child Tax Credit! We cannot go another year with more children in poverty, when we already have a solution.

In 2021, the Child Tax Credit was expanded and the full credit was made available to families with the lowest incomes for the first time in its history. As a result, child poverty fell by 46% in 2021, with Black and Hispanic child poverty falling by 6.3 percentage points in each community, impacting 716,000 Black children and 1.2 million Hispanic children.

Political gridlock kept the CTC from being expanded in 2022 and we are determined to not let that happen in 2023.

Child poverty is a policy choice, not an inevitability. Send a message directly to President Biden demanding he fight for the expanded Child Tax Credit in 2023.

The costs of a system where families needing help the most get the least are just too high.

Thank you for all you do to support families and children,

Deborah Weinstein
Executive Director, Coalition on Human Needs