Gage Skidmore
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Child poverty rates immediately spiked nationwide after expanded payments from the federal government to parents struggling through the pandemic stopped after December.
A new study from Columbia University released last week found that the portion of U.S. kids living in poverty jumped from 12.1% to 17% within a single month following the expiration of President Joe Biden’s modified child tax credit. Columbia researchers said the jump in child poverty was directly linked to the tax credit’s expiration.
Experts say the nationwide spike is especially concerning in Dallas, where child poverty rates have been in the top 3 of all metro areas in the nation for several years running.
“Dallas has shown time and again that it does not have the public and nonprofit resources to resolve the child poverty concerns that remain in this city,” said Hannah Lebovits, professor of public affairs and planning at the University of Texas at Arlington.
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“With the lack of additional federal funding and resultant increase in child poverty amongst specifically white and Latino kids, I have deep concerns about the city’s future ability to mitigate this social crisis,” Lebovits added.
From the beginning of his term in office, President Biden said that childrens’ needs, from childcare to early education, were a top policy priority for his administration.
His Build Back Better plan, a sweeping set of policy changes covering climate change, public education, healthcare and beyond, specifically emphasized financial relief for poor and working families with kids.
Parents were hit especially hard by the day-to-day changes the pandemic inflicted; more than half of working parents reported significant setbacks in their careers or other problems at work caused by the added stress of looking after their kids when schools went remote.
“With the lack of additional federal funding and resultant increase in child poverty amongst specifically white and latino kids, I have deep concerns about the city’s future ability to mitigate this social crisis.” Hannah Lebovits
President Biden’s plan included several different measures designed to ease the burden on parents during the pandemic, but the administration failed to get Build Back Better through the Senate.
A significant change to child tax credits for working parents, however, was signed into law last March. As a result of the change, stressed and cash-strapped families across the U.S. started receiving expanded monthly payments averaging $423 per household by mid-July.
The child tax credit expansion had a striking and immediate effect on child poverty rates nationwide. According to a study from Columbia University, the slice of kids living in poverty in the U.S. fell by 4% within the first month of the start of the increased payments.
From July through December 2021, the expansion continued to keep millions of kids from falling below the poverty line. U.S. House Democrats pushed to extend the credit until 2025 as a bulwark against ongoing economic fallout caused by the pandemic.
The push failed, though, and the expanded child tax credit expired at the end of last calendar year.
Within a month of the expansion’s expiration, child poverty spiked nationwide, from 12.1% in December 2021 to 17 percent by the end of last month. The increase translates to 3.7 million more kids living in poverty over a single month and was caused specifically by the expiration of the credit, according to Columbia University researchers.
The number of Latino and white children living in poverty increased more than any other racial groups in the month after the expiration, the study also found.
President Biden is now touring the U.S., promoting a revised version of the Build Back Better plan. It’s unclear if the new version of the plan includes a child tax credit.
