Lifting Children Out Of Poverty Today Will Help Them Tomorrow
As part of the latest COVID-19 relief package, the federal government has expanded the child tax credit and made it available to all families with children except those with the highest incomes. Families will get US$3,000 per kid ages 6 to 17, and $3,600 for younger children. The Internal Revenue Service will deliver half of this money as monthly payments of either $250 or $300 during the second half of 2021 and the rest as a lump sum during the 2022 tax season.
If the government extends this benefit beyond the one year that’s currently funded, as many members of Congress and the Biden administration would like, this policy has the potential to dramatically cut child poverty by as much as 50%.
This kind of arrangement is already the norm in many countries, such as Canada, Germany and the...