The Child Tax Credit Should be Made Permanent and Without Work Requirements

 There appear to be some more signs of progress among the Progressive and Centrist wings of the Democratic Party on the components of a revised $1.7 to $1.9 trillion Biden/Harris Build Back Better Plan.

In the latest reporting from Politico, these appear to be the latest items that will be in the legislation:

• Universal Pre K.
• Paid Family Leave for up to four weeks (down from the original twelve.)
• An increase in Pell Grants and workforce/apprenticeship funding. A push for Free Community College appears to be out.
• Expansions of funding for the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid for three years.
• Dental (and possibly hearing and vision) coverage for Medicare recipients through a voucher-flex card program.
• Tax Credits for Clean Energy purchases. A more ambitious program, the Clean Electricity Performance Program, that would reward companies that go green and penalize those that do not is, per the wishes of Senator Joe Manchin, off the table.
• Child and Home Care funding.
• An extension of the Child Tax Credit for one year. Whether that extension includes the income and workplace requirements Senator Manchin has requested is not clear yet.

The Child Tax Credit should be made permanent and without a workplace requirement. 

The expansion of the Child Tax Credit is perhaps the greatest anti-poverty program since the Great Society Era.

This is the program where families can receive up to $3600 a year for each qualifying child and pay for items like food, clothes, bikes, and toys.

According to the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, it has lifted between three and three and a half million children out of poverty every month since July 2021.

The same study showed the child poverty rate went down 29 percent with the expansion of the Child Tax Credit.

Economists forecast that child poverty will be cut close to about 50 percent once the program is in full force.

In Arizona, families in August 2021 received an average payment of $444, totaling about $353 million for the whole Grand Canyon state.

At an event in September 2021, both Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego and Children's Action Alliance head David Lujan championed the benefits of the program.

Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego

Mayor Gallego said the program "is doing a world of good" and "economists tell us the one best tool we have to do something about poverty is investing in kids. The child tax care credit does that...It’s important for every family. but (the expanded child tax credit) can be life-changing for those who are struggling to get by.”

Mr. Lujan relayed that “for so many in Arizona, this means finally having the resources necessary to make ends meet. The expanded CTC addresses a key gap in combating economic hardship and poverty in Arizona.”

That is why the Child Tax Credit should be made permanent.

Extending it for one year, as the current scuttlebutt around the revised Biden/Harris Build Back Better suggests, may prove to be an effective 2022 campaign issue with Democrats rightfully saying that it would be necessary to elect more of them to get a longer extension or permanent status of the benefit.

However, many Arizonans and Americans would probably be more comfortable knowing the extension was for longer or forever rather than playing Child Tax Credit Roulette with the mid-term election results.

So will most of the Democratic Congressional Caucus who were hoping for at least a five-year extension of the program.

Another problem with extending the Child Tax Credit is that West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin has said he will only support an extension if there are more stringent income guidelines and a work requirement.

David Lujan, head of the Children's Action Alliance.

Responding to a request for comment, Mr. Lujan rejected the notion that there should be a work requirement for people to qualify for the Child Tax Credit. He stated:

"Attaching work requirements to the expanded CTC benefits would deny the credit to many of the people who need it the most. And stay-at-home caregivers are working, raising children is very important to work. Surveys show that people are using the expanded tax credit to put food on the table, pay bills, and buy necessities. The expanded CTC if made permanent will lift more than 109,000 Arizona children out of poverty but many will be left out if work requirements are attached."

Mr. Lujan is right. While a case can be made to means-test the income levels of Child Tax Credit recipients so people that are more affluent do not get as much or any of the expanded benefit, there should be no work requirement for people to qualify for the child tax credit.

It is disingenuous for Senator Manchin to spew conservative talking points that most people are lazy and out to game the system. These are the same people that thought unemployment would dramatically decrease if extended unemployment aid was cut off. That prediction never materialized either.

Please read Catherine Rampbell's and Katrina vanden Heuvel's recent columns in the Washington Post. They effectively refute Senator Manchin's arguments for a workplace requirement, citing both the potentially cumbersome paperwork process for people to prove they qualify for the benefit and the responsibility of the United States Government to finally fully invest in the nation's children.

The Child Tax Credit, like the Earned Income Tax Credit, has proven to be an effective anti-poverty measure.

Hopefully, the Democrats will find a way to agree to extend it longer than one year and without onerous and unnecessary work requirements.

Hopefully.