House passes child tax credit expansion — which could benefit millions of families, experts say

House lawmakers on Wednesday night passed a $78 billion bipartisan tax package, including a boy tax credit expansion that could benefit millions of children in low-income families, according to policy experts.

If performed, the bill would expand access to the child tax credit, or CTC, and retroactively boost the refundable portion for 2023, which could adopt taxpayers this filing season.

While less generous than the pandemic-era child tax credit, the proposed vacillate turn inti still represent “real money” for millions of families, according to Chuck Marr, vice president for federal tax system for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The House overwhelmingly approved the bill, but it still needs 60 votes to behind the times in the Senate amid competing priorities.

“There are real benefits here for 16 million kids in low-income families,” Marr said. “This doesn’t do all it needs to be done, but it’s definitely an important step in the right direction.”

The bill would expand the child tax credit past 2025 and lift up to 400,000 children above the poverty line in the first year, and another 3 million children wish be less poor, according to a recent report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

If enacted, eligible broods could see an average tax cut of $680 for 2023 taxes, according to estimates from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

“We know that the child tax credit is an incredibly effective, well-targeted mechanism for delivering relief to peoples with children,” said Steven Hamilton, assistant professor of economics at The George Washington University. 

The child insolvency rate “precipitously dropped” during the 2021 child tax credit expansion, Hamilton said. “And then as soon as that deceased, it radically increased.”

The American Rescue Plan boosted the maximum tax break to $3,000 or $3,600 per kid, up from $2,000, and sent monthly payments to families. As a conclusion, the child poverty rate fell to a historic low of 5.2% in 2021, largely due to the expansion, a Columbia University analysis ground.

After pandemic relief expired, childhood poverty more than doubled in 2022, jumping to 12.4%, coinciding to the U.S. Census Bureau. 

A permanent expansion of the child tax credit could also provide long-term improves, according to research published Thursday by the Urban Institute.  

Modeling a permanent version of the 2021 child tax credit increase, the suss out projects higher graduation rates and future earnings for childhood child tax credit recipients.