[music]

Kai Wright: Hey, everyone. This is The Takeaway. I'm Kai Wright, host of WNYC's The United States of Anxiety in for Tanzina Vega, who is back later this week.

[music]

Joe Biden: We have to get this right. Details matter because we have to continue to build confidence in the American people that their government can function for them and deliver.

Kai Wright: Last week, President Joe Biden signed his $1.9 trillion economic relief package into law. In addition to enhanced unemployment insurance and one-time payments of $1,400. The American Rescue Plan also makes some changes to tax policies that could go a long way for some families.

One of those changes is an expansion of the Child Tax Credit. Combined with a number of other measures, the bill could target child poverty in the most substantial way in modern history at a time when so many parents are struggling financially.

Rosa DeLauro: It's a new deal, it's FDR. When he said social security, we lift 90% of seniors out of poverty. We are going to lift millions of children and their families out of poverty with the stroke of the pen.

Kai Wright: That's Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, who's been advocating for the expansion of the Child Tax Credit since 2003. More than a year into the pandemic, almost 8 million people have fallen into poverty and 2.3 million women have left the workforce while taking on additional responsibilities at home.

We start The Takeaway this week with a look at what the expanded Child Tax Credit could mean for the future of child poverty. With me now are Chabeli Carrazana, Economy Reporter from The 19th, and Fatima Goss Graves, President of the National Women's Law Center. Thank you both for joining me.

Chabeli Carrazana: Thanks so much.

Fatima Goss Graves: Glad to be here.

Kai Wright: Chabeli, let's start with you. What exactly is included in the expansion of the Child Tax Credit?

Chabeli Carrazana: There's three big changes that come about from this expansion. Right now families get about $2,000 from the Child Tax Credit every year in their taxes. The three big things that are going to happen now is that that amount is going to increase quite substantially. It's going to be about $3,000 for children ages 6 to 17, and $3,600 for younger children under the age of 6.

The other thing that's going to happen is that instead of an annual payment, families are going to be getting these payments periodically. It could be monthly, it could be every few months. The IRS I think is still trying to figure out exactly what that timeframe is, but it's going to be coming more frequently and in parts. Then, of course, the most substantial part of this change is that it's going to be fully refundable.

What that means is that the poorest families in the country, the ones that have no tax liability and previously would not have been able to access the full amount, are now going to get the full amount. What that does is, it's going to make it accessible for 27 million children, including about half of all Black and Latinx kids, and it's going to raise about 10 million kids to, or above the poverty line.

Kai Wright: Those are all some of the significant changes that are going to happen. One of those that pops out at me is that second one, this business about you're going to get the payments monthly. That seems like an important difference in managing your budget.

Chabeli Carrazana: That's a big one, especially for low-wage families. You don't want to wait until the next year when you file your taxes to be getting this money. You're instead going to get several hundred dollars a month or periodically.

The idea there is to really aid those families that are really struggling, who might be essential workers, who might have lost their jobs throughout this pandemic. A lot of those folks are women, and to be able to get those funds quicker, and that will help you give you a little cushion, maybe finish all the rent or pay some other needs.

Kai Wright: Fatima, can you try to put this piece of the package in the larger perspective for the COVID relief package, how significant is this piece of it?

Fatima Goss Graves: Well, this piece would frankly be significant on its own, but when paired with other important things, including the extension of unemployment insurance changes which reach additional categories of workers, the deepening of childcare assistance, we've lost one in six childcare providers during this pandemic and major investments in things like housing and food. It is our hope that we are finally doing, a year into the pandemic, the types of things to hurt those who have struggled the most this last year.

Kai Wright: To help those who have struggled the most. Let's think about that particular group that it's particularly meaningful as Chabeli just pointed out to families in the lowest income bracket, people who aren't making any money or not enough money to owe taxes in the first place. What exactly has changed for those families, Fatima, in the course of this package? What are they going to get? What are they now guaranteed as a consequence of this?

Fatima Goss Graves: Well, if you think about what has happened in this last year, you mentioned essential workers. There are many people who have been working on the front lines of this pandemic, but not with regular wages and not with family-sustaining wages. There are others, many millions who have had to leave the workforce with childcare being a big part of it, but also things like the fact that they were working in sectors that have shut down in this period.

We're not talking about folks who were sitting on some nest egg or cushion to get them through an unexpected pandemic. People have gotten deep into debt. People have not been able to make it work. When I think about the types of things that we had in place before, we didn't have systems to capture people for the length of time of this pandemic. We didn't have the sorts of housing assistance to have people feel secure right now. There's a real worry about increasing homelessness in this period as well.

Kai Wright: Chabeli, we know that Black and Latinx children are living disproportionately in poverty, in high levels of poverty compared to their white counterparts. What has your reporting shown that this expansion will mean for those families from a racial justice perspective?

Chabeli Carrazana: It's going to have a really disproportionate impact on these groups because again, they've been suffering more than the other groups. When we're looking at some estimates for the child poverty rate for Black children, we're looking at a potential drop from 17.8% to 9.7%. For Latinx kids, that could be a drop from 21.7% to 13.4%.

It's a really substantial measure, particularly when you look at children of color because their families and their parents are most likely to be the ones working in the sectors that lost jobs this year. We saw a couple of women and LGBTQ folks, and Black women, and Latinx and Latinos, they had the highest unemployment rates of any group this year. Latinos were up at 20% at one point this year and Black women were over 16.5%.

They were the ones-- They're most likely to be heads of households, so if they're losing their jobs, their children are suffering as a result of all of that. These are the groups that were hurt the most this year and could see the biggest-- That have the most to gain from an expansion like this that would help again, the lowest wage families that before this year could not access this full credit.

Kai Wright: It's interesting. I mean, those numbers that you give, I don't know how many people appreciate what child poverty is in the United States in the first place compared to other developed nations. Can you talk about that a little, Chabeli? How do we measure up?

Chabeli Carrazana: The United States, for everything else it does, is really behind on child poverty. When you compare it to other OACD, other developed countries. There's really only a few countries that have a higher child poverty rate than us, Turkey, Mexico, but there's not much else on the other end of the spectrum, it's like us and then just a few others. Doing better than us, Germany, Japan, Australia, France, Switzerland, Denmark.

The UK had a similar Child Tax Credit program. They had a few other parts of that initiative, but they were able to cut child poverty in half with a similar measure. Canada has a child allowance. When we look at the countries that we would consider similar to us, we're the only ones that are missing this piece and so it would bring us up to par, I think, with some of our counterparts.

Kai Wright: Fatima, can you help us think about that in the broader context, beyond the bill itself? We know that research shows that the cycle of poverty is hard to interrupt once you found yourself living through it. We have these child poverty numbers that Chabeli is spelling out, and we know that the pandemic is making it harder.

When we have something like the American Rescue Plan that could cut child poverty by half, we hear that startling statistic, what can that mean in a broader context for a generation of kids?

Fatima Goss Graves: Well, I hope we actually learn a lesson because the thing that I wanted to name is that in a year, these expansions will expire. I hope what we will learn is a very basic lesson, is that it works to support families in poverty, that it works to do things like make a credit available to them, a payment available to them over time, rather than forcing families to wait until tax time and that it works to support families whose wages are so low, that they aren't going to get a big tax refund at the end of the year.

The shift in making this credit refundable so that even the lowest-income families, even those who are in deep poverty are able to benefit from it. That is the shift that we should have been thinking about a long time ago.

When we pair the Child Tax Credit with some of the other reforms that we have, it is my hope that we learn a lesson of what it looks like to support our families who are in the most pain in this period that that is good for families, that that will be good for children over time. We're going to be monitoring this a lot and really telling the story of families who have been able to have this important intervention.

Kai Wright: Other types of welfare programs restrict how money can be spent. What about that? Are there strings attached in this case, Fatima? Are these funds more flexible?

Fatima Goss Graves: No. This is really a part of making our tax code fair is another way to think about it. In general, if you think about the ways that our tax code works at its foundations, it builds in this inequality where it gives lots of additional benefits to those who are at the top of the income bracket and to those who are businesses. For families, especially those with low incomes, our tax code hasn't typically been shifted around them. These are dollars that families will have to spend in this period as they need.

Kai Wright: I hear you saying that we shouldn't even be thinking about it as a "welfare program," but rather as a fair tax program.

Fatima Goss Graves: The way to think about it, it is a part of making our tax code fair.

Kai Wright: Fatima, Representative Rosa DeLauro has been introducing this idea of an expanded Child Tax Credit since 2003. Why is it taking this long to get it done?

Fatima Goss Graves: What we have been missing in this period, frankly, is the political will to get it done. We've been missing the idea that we should focus on families in poverty, families in deep poverty, as well. We also, I believe, have been battling public narratives that painted people who make low incomes as if they were the problem rather than the fact that they were in jobs that were paying low incomes. That they were in jobs that didn't allow them to have regular and steady schedules and raises and salaries that allowed them to support their families. I think the pandemic provided a real window into what happens when even more people go into poverty and the acceleration we needed to finally get this done.

Kai Wright: Chabeli, what about that? Is there a change in the political conversation here in this bill, as Fatima suggests that we're-- Is there a shift here in how Washington thinks and talks about dealing with poverty?

Chabeli Carrazana: Yes, I think there is, and I spoke to Representative DeLauro about her long history with this. This past week, it was 18 years to the day when she first introduced the idea of a fully refundable Child Tax Credit. She talks about, "Back then I was oftentimes the only voice talking about this. There wasn't really anybody to have the conversation with. Nobody entertained it."

Now we're at a time, in the past few years, in particular, not just this year, where we're starting to see more, particularly Republicans come out with versions of a Child Tax Credit expansion. Now, this is a conversation that wasn't happening, 10, 15, 20 years ago. Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, Mitt Romney, they have all come out in support of an expansion system of some sort. The conversation has really shifted where there are a lot of people who are interested in finding some solution.

Kai Wright: What about the Republicans who don't support it? What's the argument against it?

Chabeli Carrazana: Well, again, it's welfare assistance. There's that concern, and that has come up a lot. Even Rubio and Lee who have come out in support of the Child Tax Credit, are worried that it's welfare assistance for families and should not be given to if you don't have a tax liability, essentially if you're not paying anything in taxes every year, you shouldn't be getting access to this credit. That's the tension point.

Then honestly, it's expensive. It's expensive to expand the Child Tax Credit. Fatima was talking about it a little bit earlier, this expansion that we have right now is for a year, and less than a year, we're going to be talking about this again to see has it become permanent, what shape that will take. That's going to be a tough conversation about how do we fund this in the long term?

Kai Wright: Well, quite notably, that's going to be going into a midterm election as well, a congressional election. There is some thought that the Democrats set that up as a political strategy.

Chabeli Carrazana: Well, there's no doubt that that is going to be part of the conversation at that point. Look, the reality is, these checks are going to be very, very visible. Families are going to be getting them every so often, every few weeks. The stimulus checks from this past year were overwhelmingly popular, and so this is a similar idea where you're going to be getting that tangible money. It's going to be really popular and Democrats are banking on that.

How are you going to tell your constituents in a year, we're going to take this away now? That is a pro for the Democrats that want to expand this. It's just a question of when we look at a permanent expansion over a long period of time, where does that money come from? It's trillions of dollars. You have to find a way to fund that.

Kai Wright: Fatima, we've said that 2.3 million women have left the workplace since the start of the pandemic. Can you help us think about what, for those women in particular, what this would mean from a gender perspective?

Fatima Goss Graves: I'm thinking all the time about the women, especially women of color, who have just borne the brunt of this pandemic. It is my hope that the combination between the certainty of the credit and the unemployment insurance extensions give them a little hope and relief in this period.

People were asked to do the impossible of work, basically, as essential workers and care for children without a care infrastructure. We knew that that wasn't going to be a thing that was sustainable and it's not. I hope it helps get people through. I hope it gets people some hope and that it reminds us that the people who are most important in our lives can be supported.

Kai Wright: How are you each feeling now as we hopefully stare towards the end of this period of the pandemic, at least vaccines are coming. There's a new administration. We have this bill that is being discussed, both of you are talking about it as such a remarkable sea of change. I just want to take your temperature on what the next couple of years you think will look like in this realm. Let's start with you, Chabeli.

Chabeli Carrazana: It's been a really hard year. Like I said, I really focused on women, LGBTQ folks in those groups who have been hit so so hard. It does feel, as we got to the end of this relief package, it's a massive $1.9 trillion. There's multiple components in there, that, a lot of that is going to help these folks.

Just thinking about the Child Tax Credit, I was looking at some statistics about who it would help the most. 47% of medical assistants would benefit, that's 94% women. 38% of childcare workers would benefit, that's 95% women. It's like a lot of this aid that's coming is really targeted for the people who have endured unimaginable financial duress this year, apart from the health outcomes, of course. It does feel like with the vaccines' roll out beginning and with this money coming in, that we might be turning a corner.

Kai Wright: What about you, Fatima?

Fatima Goss Graves: I think about over the last year and story after story of dramatically long food lines was in the news and story about in a single month, over 800,000 women leaving the workforce, and we still weren't acting with the urgency to actually support and hold people in this country through a 100-year pandemic. We hadn't had anything like this in a century, and we came through.

The political will, the strength to actually do what families need to be able to relieve the pain they have been feeling. It is heartening. It is exciting. The thing is, I'm not saying we're done. This isn't about the long-term recovery. This really is about supporting families who are struggling in this period and I am really glad that it happened.

Kai Wright: Fatimah Goss Graves is the President of the National Women's Law Center. Chabeli Carrazana is the Economy Reporter for The 19th. Thank you both for joining us.

Chabeli Carrazana: Thank you.

[music]

Caller 1: This is Paul from Portland, I fully support the Child Tax Credit but it won't benefit me whatsoever. I imagine quite a few others who haven't been able to start families because of the prohibitive cost of housing and medical care. Still, I hope it helps those that are able to have kids.

Caller 2: Well, the stimulus check doesn't mean that much to me, because I owe more than that in my current tax return to the IRS.

Caller 3: What will the stimulus money mean to me? Our house is falling down around this and now we will be able to make some critical repairs.

Caller 4: This is Michael Dramata. It may actually put us in an awkward spot because our health care comes through the state. The extra income might actually put us in a bracket, where we have to buy our insurance in the private market and because we have disabilities in our family, that might actually wind up costing us more than it helps us.

I have a co-worker that's got two kids with his current wife and two other kids from a previous marriage that he pays child support for. All of his PUA is going to pay the child support. He's had to work through the whole pandemic going into people's houses with two surgical masks on in order to keep his family fed.

There's a lot of people who are told they do not qualify for benefits like food stamps or Medicare. There's a lot more who see the federal government's help, on one hand, that kind of like screws them over because, like, "Here's your PUA," and then they tell you, "Oh look, you make too much money. Now your food stamps and your student loan deferments and your health care, go away, and good luck with that."

[music]

Copyright © 2021 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.