Kamala Harris Calls for ‘No Child to Live in Poverty’: Child Tax Credit Could Help | Opinion

Vice President Kamala Harris’s remarks to her new campaign staff called for “a future where no child has to grow up in poverty.” Her first campaign ad doubled down on that message. Now, she’s laying out the policies that underpin that vision, including a robust Child Tax Credit that would provide $6,000 to children in their first year of life and regular cash support throughout childhood.

It gives the Child Tax Credit more headlines than it has seen since its temporary — now expired — extension in 2021. And not a moment too soon.

Last fall, my colleagues and I at Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy reported that 2021–22 saw the largest single-year increase in childhood poverty nationwide. But just before that—at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021—child poverty had fallen to historic lows.

What we achieved in 2021 is a policy roadmap for the future — how we can support children regardless of family income or family circumstances. And the power of what is possible when we center people in policy.

If poverty had not been controlled during the pandemic, it could have reached its highest level in more than 50 years. Instead, Congress acted quickly and deliberately. Almost overnight, policy changed in ways we had been told for years it could never change.

The changes included paid sick days and family leave to care for themselves and their loved ones. Pay for childcare workers that make it possible to work in all other sectors. Unemployment insurance at a level realistic enough to keep families afloat between jobs, while also recognizing that essential workers can’t be overlooked. Cutting red tape so that burdensome paperwork doesn’t prevent families from accessing health insurance or food assistance. Helping families stay in their homes instead of being easily evicted. And flexible cash through an expanded child tax credit to help cover the costs of raising children.

The Child Tax Credit was a game-changer. Credit amounts were increased, with extra support for children under 6. Eligibility was expanded to cover a third of children nationwide who had historically been left out. And a one-year tax refund became a regular monthly payment that parents could build into their household budget. Since the first payments were made in mid-July 2021, the impact has been rapid. Three million children were lifted out of poverty immediately, with the impact building over time.

What did this mean in practice? Family bank accounts grew, and families caught up on bills. Multiple surveys, as well as anonymized credit and debit card and cellphone data, showed that families spent their credit primarily on food, as well as children’s clothing, education and childcare. Food insecurity fell by 25 percent. Families felt better financially, reflecting indicators that often reveal the tragic elements of poverty-induced stress. Parents stopped selling blood plasma. Emergency room visits by children fell, as did calls to child abuse hotlines.

Then the payments stopped. Despite solid evidence of success, Congress refused (and still refuses) to continue the Child Tax Credit and allowed other pandemic-era policy improvements to expire. Bank accounts fell. Poverty rose. Hunger returned.

The monthly Child Tax Credit was a “blessing” and offered “breathing space” in New York, “reduced stress for my kids” in Mississippi and helped “fill in the gaps” in Michigan between what families had and what they needed. Parents told how the Child Tax Credit gave them the ability to say “yes” — “yes” to what their child wanted for lunch, “yes” to music lessons and summer camp, “yes” to a Halloween costume, “yes” to Spider-Man sheets. Because even though they weren’t able to give their child their own room yet, they could at least give them this.

Families who received it said the Child Tax Credit made them feel the government cared about them, but they were left shocked when the comprehensive, common-sense support introduced during the pandemic disappeared, leaving them distrustful of the government.

What the expanded Child Tax Credit achieved when it was in place was inspiring. We can’t let the conversation drift back toward despair. Any conversation about poverty and politics will undoubtedly rehash the same tired messages we’ve heard for decades—what about “personal responsibility”? What about the costs? To borrow Dutch historian Rutger Bregman’s pithy but apt TED Talk title, capturing what so many have catalogued before: “Poverty is not a lack of character, but a lack of cash.” And that poverty—not the policy solutions to it—is costing us dearly, to the tune of $1 trillion a year, compounded by the immeasurable loss of dreams and potential for our children.

Imagine the resources generated if we permanently halved child poverty. Imagine what we could do if we eradicated it entirely.

We know what to do. That’s what we did. Our future — and our children’s — depends on us doing it again.

Megan A. Curran, Ph.D., is the Policy Director at Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy and a Public Opinion Expert on Racial Justice in Early Childhood for the OpEd Project in partnership with the National Institute of Black Child Development.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author.