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.
Tell the Senate that low-income families are not political pawns!
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 million children in families struggling to meet basic needs.
Tell the Senate that low-income families are not political pawns!
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!
Take Action
Subscribe
Donate
The U.S. ranks 28th out of 29 developed countries surveyed in terms of relative child poverty, placing it between Latvia and Romania, according to a report by UNICEF. More than 23% of American children live in households where disposable income is less than half of the national median, earning the…
Decades ago, I remember women slowly awakening to the fact that their dissatisfaction about roadblocks to working outside the home was not just their personal problem. It was a hard slog to get from blaming yourself to recognizing that the “system” needed changing. It felt like that again at the…
One of the central themes of conversations among social workers is recognizing one’s privilege. I quickly realized my privilege on June 16th as the panelists for the discussion on financial literacy for foster youth, organized by the Senate Caucuses on Foster Youth and Financial and Economic Literacy, began to tell…
When House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) lost his primary election earlier this month – much to everyone’s surprise – claims that immigration reform was dead were all over the airways. Many pundits pointed to the belief that Rep. Cantor’s support of immigration reform was the cause of his loss,…
Today the President, First Lady, and Vice President and Mrs. Biden are underscoring the importance of improving the daily lives of millions of working families by participating in the White House Summit on Working Families. The President highlighted the need for workplace policies that meet the most basic family needs…
63 percent of children in the U.S. live in families where all parents work. But the lower the family’s income, the less likely the parent’s employer is to provide any form of paid leave. The U.S. Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) released a new report, The Economics of Paid and…
The United States remains the only high-income country that does not guarantee paid family and medical leave. As President Obama said in his June 21 Weekly Address, “Only three countries in the world report that they don’t offer paid maternity leave. Three. And the United States is one of them.”…
In April, CHN hosted a webinar on the House-passed budget – the so-called “Path to Prosperity” – put forth by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). The webinar exposed the truth about the “path” this budget would take us on – one in which massive cuts to housing, education, nutrition, and health care…
“I am a single father of two small children, a boy who is 5 and a little girl who is 3…. I have worked hard my entire life and have never been afraid of hard work but … it’s very hard to find work…. Unemployment isn’t something that people are…
Every day we see the good that comes from investing in people. We want to celebrate the achievements of Gena and her mother. Gena’s mom was kicked out of her parents’ home and wound up in abusive relationships. “Home life was chaotic and scary,” writes Gena for Our American Story,…
Congress lets corporations use overseas tax havens to dodge $90 billion in taxes each year. But it refuses to extend unemployment insurance for more than 3 million workers? When a five-story office building in the Cayman Islands is the official address of 18,857 companies, it’s a pretty good hint…
Last year, the 25 highest-earning hedge fund managers in the United States made a total of $21.15 billion – about 2.5 times as much as all the kindergarten teachers in America combined. (New York Times, Vox) In addition to the massive earnings, these hedge fund managers pay taxes at the lower…