Making Children Poorer

Child poverty more than doubled last year, a sad and entirely predictable consequence of Congressional action. Expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) in 2021 slashed child poverty to 5.2 percent. Congressional Republicans refused to continue the expanded Child Tax Credit. Child poverty zoomed back up to 12.4 percent. 

That’s more than one in ten children in the country living in poverty. For Black and Hispanic children the number is even higher—almost one in five. More than a quarter of all Native American children live in poverty. 

We know how to help poor children. What we need is the will to do so. Child poverty should not be a partisan issue.

Testifying before the Senate finance committee in July, Indivar Dutta-Gupta, the president and executive director of the Center for Law and Social Policy, summed up the impact of poverty on children: 

“Poverty affects children through direct material hardships such as food insecurity and hunger, inadequate clothing or diapers, lack of health care, living in overcrowded or substandard housing, or being homeless. But poverty also harms children by imposing high levels of stress on their parents, which impairs their capacity to give their children the care and attention any child needs to thrive.3 The harsh realities of today’s low-wage labor market—with the norm being little paid time off and unpredictable and unstable schedules—ratchet up the stress and make it harder for parents to fulfill their dual roles as wage-earners and caregivers.” 

Children living in poverty are more likely to drop out of school, and more likely to live in poverty as adults. Helping children is a cost-effective investment. Programs like SNAP and the CTC make good economic sense for the entire country. 

Beyond economics, keeping children poor is just plain wrong. 

We are all responsible for our children. We know the saying: It takes a village to raise a child. We are the village. We must do better by our children.