Tell the Senate: Expand the Child Tax Credit now and reject attacks on low-income families
Cynical Senators are playing politics with the Child Tax Credit―and with the lives of millions of families with young children.
Some members of the Senate are lining up to block a tax package that will benefit 16 million children in lower-income families via an expanded CTC, despite a broad bipartisan House vote. Why? For some, the answer is simple: pure politics.
Expanding the Child Tax Credit is popular and is proven to dramatically reduce child poverty levels. So why are some members of the Senate trying so hard to stop the Senate from moving forward on this bipartisan package, and kill the CTC with poison pill amendments? Maybe because they think they can get a bill with more corporate tax breaks and a weaker CTC in the next Congress. Or maybe they don’t want to hand President Biden a legislative victory on an issue he has consistently championed. Whatever the reason, they are denying low-income families with children a bigger refund check just as millions of families are filing their taxes. We need Congress to act by the end of April to make it easier for people to receive a higher CTC as soon as possible. That’s why we are holding Senators accountable to take up this bipartisan tax package now.
The expanded Child Tax Credit included in the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act would lift 400,000 children out of poverty in tax year 2023, rising to 500,000 above the poverty line in 2025. It would also add much needed income to about 16 millionchildren in families struggling to meet basic needs.
Click “START WRITING” to send a message to your Senators right now and urge them to reject the stalling tactics of politicians playing political games and pass the expanded Child Tax Credit for low-income families before the end of tax season. Children and families need help now!
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CHN’s COVID-19 Watch: Tracking Hardship January 29, 2021
The K-shaped recovery edition. COVID-19 daily infections are down over the past two weeks. Hospitalizations are down. Deaths are down, slightly. Vaccinations are on the rise – more than 22 million Americans have received their first shot, and the rolling average of shots per day has climbed to over one million. All of which is encouraging news.
But the economic news is not so encouraging. New information out this week confirms what many have feared: we are experiencing a K-shaped recovery. The top end of the economy continues to improve while lower earners fall farther and farther behind. The businesses hit hardest in 2020 – and those that continue to struggle today, if they even still exist – disproportionately employ women, people of color, and workers without college educations.
Vaccines alone won’t pull us out of this economic morass. Only swift, bold, and long-lasting action by Congress will do that, and that means passage of President Biden’s American Rescue Plan. But vaccines are key, as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell noted this week, when he saidthere is “nothing more important to the economy right now than getting people vaccinated.”
That said, vaccines by themselves won’t put food on the table, open child care centers, or bring back the ten million jobs that have evaporated since the pandemic began. Along with the vaccines, we need to pass the plan now. You can tell your members of Congress to pass the plan here.
-34%/-2%
As of Thursday, January 28, new COVID-19 infections in the U.S. numbered165,073, a 34 percent decrease from two weeks earlier. 3,862 deaths were reported, down 2 percent. Tweet this.
3.5%
The U.S. economy shrunkby 3.5 percent in 2020, its worst performance since 1946. Tweet this.
45 weeks
Last week marked the 45th consecutive week that new unemployment insurance claims were higher than the worst week of the Great Recession. 1.27 million new claims were reported– that includes regular UI claims plus Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claims (gig/self-employed workers). Tweet this.
10%
The nation’s real unemployment rate, if we adjust the official rate with the decline in workforce participation along with the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ estimate of misclassification. Tweet this.
More than 20%
The Federal Reserve estimatesthat the unemployment rate for workers in the bottom wage quartile is more than 20 percent. Tweet this.
More than 1 million
In three of the biggest employment sectors for low-education (high school diploma or less) workers – construction, bars and restaurants, and hotels and motels – more than a million jobs were lost between December 2019 and December 2020.
3.9%/8.5%
The unemployment rate is 3.9 percent for those Americans able to work from home; among those who have to report to a job site, it is 8.5 percent.
Nearly 24 million
The numberof adults who reported their households did not have enough to eat during the previous seven days, according to Census data gathered January 6-18. That’s 11 percent of all adults in the U.S.
15.1 million
The numberof adult renters who weren’t caught up in rent. That’s one in five adult renters.
More than 80 million
The numberof adults who reported that it was somewhat or very difficult to cover usual expenses during the past seven days. That’s 35 percent of all adults.
January 29, 2021 