If you have kids, check your bank account on Thursday. There’s a pretty good chance you’ll see $250 or $300 in your account with the letters “CTC” in the line item.
That’s because for the first time ever, we are recognizing raising kids as essential work with a bigger Child Tax Credit (CTC) for more families, and the option to get your tax credit as a monthly check or direct deposit.
Even before the pandemic, hard work wasn’t paying off for many workers. In recent decades, the cost of living has only gone up, leaving families, especially families with children, strapped for cash and living paycheck-to-paycheck. In 2019, one in eight families with children lived in poverty — nearly three times the rate for families without children.
That’s why Congress worked to include a dramatic expansion of the CTC and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) in the American Rescue Plan passed in March this year. And because a hard day’s work still doesn’t begin to cover expenses for millions of parents, it’s now more urgent than ever that Congress make these expanded tax credits permanent.