Thread by @ChuckCBPP

The top tax policy priority in year-end negotiations should be delivering the full #ChildTaxCredit to 19M children who now get < the full amount or zero b/c their families’ incomes are too low.
Our new report w/ state-by-state numbers on these children:
cbpp.org/research/feder…

The business community is pressing Congress to pass corporate tax cuts– undoing provisions of the Trump tax law that offset some of the cost of huge corporate rate cuts. The #ChildTaxCredit is a far higher priority & certainly no corporate tax cuts should proceed w/o the #CTC.

As the success of the #AmericanRescuePlan showed, a high rate of child poverty is a policy choice. The year-end tax negotiations are the time when policymakers should choose to lower child poverty, not push it higher.

Because the #ChildTaxCredit expansion expired, right now the #ChildTaxCredit gives the least to the children who would benefit the most. Children in families with low incomes should receive at least as much as children in higher income families.

Consider a single mother with a toddler & a 2nd grader, who earns $15,000 as a home health aide helping older adults meet their basic needs. This family gets $2,125 less than the maximum #ChildTaxCredit. A married family making 20 times as much gets a full $4,000 credit.

The 19 million children who receive less than the full #ChildTaxCredit or none at all because their families’ incomes are too low stand to benefit the most from receiving the full amount – in both the short & long run.

The 19 million children who get < the full credit or no credit include an estimated 45% of Black children, 39% of Latino children, 38% of American Indian or Alaska Native (AIAN) children, 17% of white children & 16% of Asian children (kids under 17).

Because of past & present discrimination and other systemic barriers, Black, Latino & AIAN individuals are over-represented in low-paid work. Making the #ChildTaxCredit more available to children in families w/ lower incomes would push back against these long-standing inequities.

Children living in rural areas are also more likely to be denied the full #ChildTaxCredit because their parents’ pay is generally lower: 32% of children in rural areas receive less than the full credit or no credit compared to 26% living in metro areas.

Proponents of conditioning the #ChildTaxCredit on earnings should consider two new data points

1. The Rescue Plan just gave us a natural experiment & the results are extremely comforting for policymakers concerned about employment effects. For example, “we find no effects on employment” from a group of U of Michigan researchers:
nber.org/system/files/w…

2. Policymakers in the Venn diagram overlap of “inflation hawk” & “CTC earnings requirement supporter” should consider that efforts to tame inflation could force people to lose their jobs & it would be unfair to take away their #ChildTaxCredit b/c of this policy-induced job loss.

Those two points are in addition to the compelling evidence that the long-term benefits for children outweigh any potential small effect on employment.

Poverty and hardship shortchange children’s futures – resulting in poorer health and education outcomes. Research finds that helping their families afford the basics opens up opportunity. We showed that we can bring down child poverty – if we make the right policy choices.

Now is the time to choose – 19 million children are counting on policymakers to expand the #ChildTaxCredit.
cbpp.org/research/feder…