Is Anyone Taking Care of the Kids
Dear Leading Ladies,
Statistics out last week about childhood poverty are staggering. The child poverty rate, calculated to include the impact of government tax and spending programs, was 9.7 percent in 2020, 5.2 percent in 2021, and 12.4 percent in 2022. To put that in numbers, according to John Cassidy in The New Yorker, “the number of children living in households under the poverty line went from 7.2 million in 2020 to 3.8 million in 2021 to nine million in 2022.”
Why did the number of children living in poverty more than double from 2021 to 2022?
Kids are paying the price
The end of the expanded child tax credit explains a great deal of the change, explains Cassidy, though there are other reasons as well, such as “the expiration of pandemic-era stimulus payments and changes to the earned-income tax credit,” both of which helped low income people.
These programs, admittedly, are expensive. But so are other programs such as Social Security, national defense, and subsidies to farmers and ranchers. The truth is, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “Making the full $2,000 current Child Tax Credit available to children in families with low incomes or without any earnings in the year — ensuring that low-income children would get the same benefit as those in higher-income families — would have a modest cost of roughly $12 billion per year through 2025, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. This is far less than the combined cost of tax breaks corporate lobbyists are pushing.”
Aren’t our kids worth it?
Here’s what not hacking away at child poverty does to our children.
“Children who have been poor for at least one year before they turn 18 are less likely to reach important adult milestones, such as graduating from high school, than children who have never been poort (78 percent vs. 93 percent),” according to The Urban Institute. “They’re also more likely to have a child as a teenager or be involved with the criminal justice system, which can affect their future job prospects and ability to finish school.”
More risks
Furthermore, children who do not complete high school “are 37 percent less likely to
be consistently employed as young adults than children who experience poverty for fewer years.”
Children living in poverty also suffer negative impacts on their cognitive development that may be exacerbated by extreme intergenerational stress, poor nutrition, and food insecurity. Moreover, “Children who directly or indirectly experience risk factors associated with poverty have higher odds of experiencing poor health problems as adults such as heart disease, hypertension, stroke, obesity, certain cancers, and even a shorter life expectancy:” according to The Children’s Bureau.
What too often results from health risks and poor health is school failure and an increased rate of dropouts. And so the cycle continues. And the money saved by curtailing the tax credit and other pandemic related relief programs will be needed for social services and unemployment payments and diabetes treatments and prisons that incarcerate the grown-up kids we threw away. The programs that have ended were expensive, but so are poor kids who too often grow up to be poor adults more likely to have low paying jobs, less education, and more physical and mental health programs than their wealthier peers. The money gets spent either way. Wouldn’t it be better to spend it to raise healthy, confident children who can be contributing adults rather than to treat broken adults for dire conditions or pretend to rehabilitate them in prisons?
Who’s fighting for change?
Many legislators are pushing to reinstate the tax credit. A group known as the CTC Six recently held a press conference last week to express their beliefs. At the press conference were U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Michael Bennet of Colorado and U.S. Reps. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, Ritchie Torres of New York, and Suzan DelBene of Washington.
“The benefits to America are extraordinary,” Bennet. “The idea that the richest country in the world wouldn’t want to end childhood poverty for its own sake defies my imagination. I do not understand it.”
DeLauro and Bennet emphasized that the money from the tax credit was used by parents for their children. DeLauro dismissed any suggestion that the funds were being used frivolously by families. “It’s frankly insulting to families to suggest parents are going to quit their jobs for $3,000 or for $3,600 a year. They are not, and the data is there to back it up.” This was a clear rebuke to Republicans and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who privately told colleagues that he thought parents would spend the extra money on drugs.
What can we do?
Write to your senators and representatives and to the CTC Six. Tell them you support the reinstatement of the Child Tax Credit.
Share the facts in this newsletter with others. People need to know how our country is failing its children.
Therese
Judy
Didi
Leading Ladies Executive Team