Join Our Community!
The Expanded Child Tax Credit Empowered Hispanic Families to Build More Stable Homes for their Children—Until GOP Ended It
The expanded Child Tax Credit empowered parents to build more stable homes for their children, cutting childhood poverty in half and lifting 2.9 million children out of poverty.
-
In 2021, child poverty fell to its lowest level ever in America as low-income parents were able to catch up on food, bills, and rent.
-
In 2022, partisan posturing in Congress blocked the CTC, with childhood poverty surging 41% the following year.
-
In August 2024, Senate Republicans blocked a bill to expand the CTC.
-
Under the current CTC, families are only eligible for benefits up to $2,000 per child for the 2024 tax year (filed in 2025).
The Expanded CTC Put Families First
As Christians, we prioritize families and the wellbeing of all children. No child should ever be without a roof over their head or food in their bellies.
The expansion of the Child Tax Credit has been the most successful program since WWII at ensuring parents have the support they need to lift themselves and their children out of poverty. This bi-partisan program empowered parents to make ends meet and gave them the flexibility to spend the cash on what their family needed most, whether that was childcare, housing, or healthy food. The cascading benefits of the program enabled parents to catch up on bills, food, and rent—stabilizing low-income homes across the country and lifting 3 million American children out of poverty!
What is the Expanded Child Tax Credit?
The expanded Child Tax Credit gave each parent a tax credit worth $3,000-per-child ($3,600 for children under age 6). Importantly, it made the credit fully refundable for families, ensuring that families struggling the most could fully access the extra help. Additionally, the IRS began issuing monthly payments to families from July to December 2021, covering half of the credit in advance, and ensuring it was spread out and easier to fit into family budgets.
The Expanded Child Tax Credit played a crucial role in preventing millions of children from going hungry as well. Within a week of its implementation, the percentage of households with children experiencing food scarcity dropped from 13.7% to 9.5%. Spending reports indicated families who benefited from the new tax credit utilized it to buy clothing, food, household items, and pay for other necessities for their children and school.
An analysis conducted by the Urban Institute revealed that making the expanded Child Tax Credit permanent would reduce child poverty by an additional 40%, benefiting more than 4.3 million children.
Impact on Hispanic Families
Because the expanded Child Tax Credit treats all families equally—regardless of income— they all receive the same tax credit. The credit has a much bigger impact on the ability of struggling families making only $20,000 than it does for those making $150,000.
The program will especially help hispanic communities across the country who are disproportionately harmed by current rules preventing low-income people from receiving the full federal Child Tax Credit. Nearly 17% of hispanic families live below the poverty line in 2022.
Because Congressional Republicans blocked the bill that would have expanded the CTC, 42 percent of Hispanic children will not receive the full credit in 2024, roughly double the percentages of white and Asian children who are left out.
The Christian Perspective
Growing up in poverty is one of the biggest barriers to a child's ability to claim the American Dream and reach their God-given potential. It's why our nation has always taken special steps to protect our children and invest in programs that ensure a more equal opportunity for all.
Kids who have enough to eat, do better in school and have fewer health complications. For a poorer working parent without leave, that can make the difference between keeping a job or losing it to take time off for a kid at home.
When parents don't have to stay up late night after night trying to figure out how they will make ends meet, they can work harder and better. Marriages are less likely to end in divorce when financial strains are lessened. Parents have a little room to save for the unexpected complications.
Protecting economically vulnerable families protects the social building block that sustains our Christian values.
That’s why religious leaders across the country have implored our elected officials to make the expanded Child Tax Credit permanent. The Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote, “Especially in this moment of economic uncertainty, we urge you to take action to ensure the progress made in the fight against child poverty this past year is not lost and that we build on these gains."
The National Association of Evangelicals, Georgetown University’s Center on Faith and Justice, the Episcopal Church; Bread for the World; and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America also rallied behind the Child Tax Credit, invoking the Gospel of Matthew and urging lawmakers to care for the “least of these.” They concluded, "To pass a reconciliation bill without including a permanent and fully refundable Child Tax Credit would be morally indefensible.”
Congressional Republicans Blocked the Expanded Child Tax Credit
Partisan posturing in Washington blocked a continuation of the tax credit in 2022. As a result, childhood poverty spiked back up 41% this past year. This tragic statistic also highlights just how effective this program can be. The families of nearly half of the children lifted out of poverty by the Child Tax Credit have been able to avoid falling back into poverty.
Unfortunately, when given a second chance to do right by hard-working Americans, Congressional Republicans once again blocked the expanded Child Tax Credit in 2024.
The proposed Child Tax Credit expansion would have restored the credit to $3,000 for children 6-17 years old, and $3,600 for children 5 years and younger, as it did under the initial expansion. Additionally, the credit would have be “fully refundable,” meaning that all American families are eligible for the full credit value.