What if nearly 4 million American children were plunged into poverty practically overnight? Surely, Americans would notice and raise their voices in righteous anger over the heartless decision that caused this sorry state of affairs. Right?
Actually, the answer is no. Because over the past few months ago this exact scenario has played out and no one appears to care.
Last year, Democrats in Congress with the strong backing of the Biden administration expanded and increased the child tax care credit as part of the American Recovery Plan.
Rare is the policy move that had such a dramatic and laudatory effect for American children. The United States has long had one of the highest child poverty rates in the developed world, but with the expanded child tax credit those numbers finally began to move in the right direction. Almost immediately, monthly child poverty in America was slashed by 30 percent. So, too, was child hunger, as more than 2 million kids no longer had to worry about not having enough food to eat.
The expanded credit was a lifesaver for millions of American families, 90 percent of whom reported they spent the money on basic necessities like food, clothing, and education.
The policy was based on a simple concept—give parents money. The credit was increased from $2,000 a year to $3,600 for a child under 6, and to $3,000 for those between the ages of 6 and 17.
Rather than giving parents a lump sum at tax time, the government issued advance payments for half the credit. So each month, the IRS deposited payments of up to $250 per child between the ages of 6 and 17, and up to $300 for kids under 6, into the bank accounts of more than 61 million families.
In addition, the tax credit was made fully available to families with little to no income. In the past, 27 million children—approximately half of whom are Black and Latino—received less money because their parents didn’t make enough money. With the expanded credit, those children were finally eligible.
In Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, the expanded credit would have become permanent. But when the credit expired in December, Congress failed to extend it.
Almost immediately, millions of the nation’s most vulnerable children were plunged back into poverty.
According to a recent survey done by Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy between December 2021 and January 2022, 3.7 million children went from being out of poverty to being in poverty. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, over time as many as 9.9 million children could fall below the poverty line if the tax credit is not expanded.
And yet, this dramatic shift in the economic fortunes of millions of American children has barely registered with the American people or their elected leaders.
Instead, Republicans are worrying themselves with other issues allegedly related to the well-being of children.
In Alabama, the state’s House of Representatives passed a bill making it a felony to prescribe gender-affirming medications (like puberty blockers and hormone therapy) for trans youth. This week, Oklahoma enacted a law that would make nearly all abortions illegal in the state, even in cases of rape or incest. Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill bans discussion of gender identification or sexuality in public school classrooms. Multiple states have enacted legislation banning the teaching of critical race theory in schools, for fear that it will make (mostly white) children uncomfortable. We are only months past fearsome debates about the efficacy of mask-wearing by children in schools.
All these measures are being taken to protect children from harm, though they are far more likely to hurt kids than help them. Yet, when it comes to keeping them out of poverty, no one seems to care.
One might imagine that Republicans—who for ideological reasons have long argued that taxpayers make better financial decisions than the government—would be excited to support legislation giving money directly to parents. And yet.
While Republicans have blocked the tax credit, an equal share of blame can be laid at the feet of Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who blocked President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, which would have made the tax credit permanent.
Manchin singled out the work credit and demanded there be a work requirement with the legislation, which would severely undercut its effectiveness. He also complained that “people making $200,000 and $400,000 would still get the child tax credit the same as someone making $50,000, $60,000 or $70,000,” even though that’s not actually the case when it comes to the expanded credit. He also allegedly raised concerns that parents would use the tax break to pay for drugs.
Since Manchin has refused to budge on the issue, Democrats have largely stopped talking about it. At Biden’s State of the Union address last month, the child tax credit got a half-sentence nod—coupled with a rhetorical call to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. There’s been little indication from the White House that they have much interest in promoting the issue.
More remarkably, those most affected by the legislation don’t seem to care either.
A recent Morning Consult poll, showed that 46 percent of those who received the benefit plan to vote for a Republican candidate in November’s midterm election (43 percent still expect to vote for a Democratic candidate). In late December, Democrats enjoyed a 12-percentage point advantage among such voters.
One might expect free money from the government to be a relatively popular public policy. But public opinion polling found that the child tax credit fares worse than other elements of the Build Back Better agenda. In particular, older Americans were the least supportive, likely because they’re long past the age of raising children, and are also concerned about the impact of expanded benefits on their Social Security and Medicare payments.
In addition, polling shows less support for expanding the credit to parents who aren’t working, even though doing so would punish their children. Since the late 1960s, Americans have been told repeatedly that poor Americans—particularly poor Americans of color—abuse government programs and that increasing benefits for some people means less for others. The child tax credit appears to be one more victim of such anti-government rhetoric.
There’s no question that we are living in a cynical political moment, but it’s a simply astonishing statement about where we are as a country that Americans are so indifferent to actual childhood suffering. Here’s a government policy that had a tangible and positive impact for kids—and not only has it gotten killed, but no one seems to bat an eye about it. “That’s Washington for you,” the cynical would (reasonably) argue.
The death of the expanded child tax credit is, unfortunately, how Washington operates these days—a town in which political advantage is the only metric of success for an entire political party, and where one ill-informed senator can send nearly 4 million kids into poverty and pay zero political price. If anything, those who killed the credit are likely to get the greatest political benefit and those who pushed for it to become law will pay the biggest political price.
But it also says something deeper and more calamitous about our enfeebled and teetering body politic. When we can’t agree on the importance of helping children—even when we have overwhelming evidence of a program that works—how can we hope to ever use the power of government to help people?
