Here & Now

COVID Relief Bill Could Reduce Child Poverty in the U.S.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now a deeper dive on the COVID relief bill. One of the most significant provisions comes in the form of bolstering the child tax credit which experts say could reduce child poverty in the United States by up to 50%. Marisa Wojcik has more on this.

Marisa Wojcik:

The historic $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill dubbed the American Rescue Plan just may rescue some families with a game-changing boost to the federal child tax credit. Families will get up to $3600 for every child under six and up to $3000 for children older. For households with one parent earning less than $75,000 or couples earning less than $150,000, targeting many middle and low-income families.

Tamarine Cornelius:

This is going to be a really broad-based benefit that helps most children in Wisconsin. So everybody is going to see a lift from this. It will be especially important to families with low incomes who are struggling to make ends meet.

Tim Smeeding:

We know that women in particular who have been hurt because of lack of child care, low-wage service jobs, which are particularly affect minorities.

Marisa Wojcik:

Women like Tineshia Campbell.

Tineshia Campbell:

My name is Tineshia Campbell. I have two beautiful kids, 12 and 10, boy and girl.

Marisa Wojcik:

Tineshia and her children live in public housing in Madison, and she works at a gas station. When the pandemic hit, things got tough.

Tineshia Campbell:

In the beginning it was real stressful because hours were cut so my pay was cut. But the bills, they don’t get cut. You know what I’m saying? The kids still have to eat. Yeah. So it was stressful in the beginning.

Tim Smeeding:

It’s hard to make ends meet. We see the lines at the food banks and we see the FoodShare was up 22%. So those particular families who were hurting before are most likely to be hurting now.

Marisa Wojcik:

Tineshia made it work with help from the food pantry across the street and a temporary increase to FoodShare benefits. But the way the new child tax credit is structured would make a big difference for families like Tineshia’s, ensuring they receives the full refund and don’t have different benefits count against one another.

Tim Smeeding:

If you earn an extra dollar right now and you’re living in public housing or receiving SNAP benefits, they’re going to reduce your SNAP benefits, they’re going to increase the rent you pay. So there will be two income reductions in addition to taxes. The child tax credit doesn’t work that way. There’s no claw back.

Marisa Wojcik:

And it won’t be a lump sum come tax season. Starting in July monthly payments will be distributed directly to families.

Tineshia Campbell:

Oh, it would be amazing. Bills would be on time. You wouldn’t have to figure out like am I going to pay for the kids to be able to go to school with the internet or should I worry about the food? Like so you — that would definitely help a lot.

Marisa Wojcik:

Experts say the expanded child tax credit along with other measures in the stimulus package could alleviate child poverty 40% to 50%. However, the funding is temporary.

Tamarine Cornelius:

Most of the other parts of the COVID relief bill are temporary. The child tax credit part is one year. And so we will have to ask ourselves when this is done if it had the tremendous impact that we’re anticipating.

Marisa Wojcik:

Having experienced homelessness, Tineshia hopes to be able to eventually save for her children’s future.

Tineshia Campbell:

I just think it’s amazing that you can give your kids that leg up and like especially now, you know, they can get the money when they’re 18, 21, 25. They can use it for college, they can use it for a business, they can use it for necessities and don’t have to ask people for help.

Marisa Wojcik:

For “Here & Now,” I’m Marisa Wojcik in Madison.