Weeks after a massively successful policy to fight child poverty lapsed, a group of Democratic senators is making another push to restore it. The policy is the expanded child tax credit, and Sens. Michael Bennet, Sherrod Brown, Ron Wyden, Cory Booker, and Raphael Warnock urged President Joe Biden not to stop trying to include this “signature domestic policy achievement of this administration” in his Build Back Better agenda, despite the opposition of every Republican plus conservative Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.

“Without the expanded credit, nearly 10 million children will be thrown back into or deeper into poverty this winter, increasing the monthly child poverty rate from roughly 12% to at least 17%,” the senators wrote in a letter to Biden. “Raising taxes on working families is the last thing we should do during a pandemic.”

Campaign Action

That’s a lot of children, and there are a lot of parents who can speak to the difference the tax credit made. Families got $300 a month for children aged 5 and younger, and $250 a month for children aged 6 to 17. Studies have found that the leading uses for the money were essential purchases like food, paying down debt, and building up a cushion of savings.

Manchin has privately suggested that he’s opposed to extending the child tax credit because parents might be using the money for drugs, and publicly he has pushed for work requirements. But “$500 a month isn’t enough reason to quit looking for a job,” Jess Hudson, a single mother of two, told NPR. “I can’t live on that. It was enough to give me child care help so that I could finish school, so I could get a job, so I can participate in the economy in the ways that I want to do.” 

What the $500 a month she got for her two children did do for Hudson was help her graduate from San Francisco State University on time by covering child care while she was in required evening classes. That’s the reality of what Manchin is opposing.

Another single mother of two in the Los Angeles area was using the money to keep her old car going so she could keep working and supporting her family. But Madisen Williams’ car went past the point of repair, and the child tax credit money stopped, and a steady job offer is three hours away by public transit. “It sucks that if you have no money, you can’t make money,” she told Politico. “I went through all this stuff to try to climb up. And then well, dang, I’m only one step away from being homeless again.”

“Me and my son could go get some fast food without, you know, making sure I didn’t hit a negative balance,” Odessa Davis, who works as a public school paraeducator in the Washington, D.C., area, told NPR. “I was able to pay for gas and anything my son needed for school.” Food—maybe a little bit of a budget-conscious treat—and gas and school supplies that someone who works in a school should probably not be struggling to afford in the first place. That’s what she was getting. That’s what the majority of parents were doing with the money. Now that money has stopped and may not restart based on the false beliefs of a holier-than-thou multimillionaire and the deep-down hatefulness of one major political party.

We have in front of us, sitting right there, a policy with proven success: success as measured by a 30% cut in child poverty and a 26% cut in food insufficiency among families with kids. Success as measured by what parents and guardians are saying about the difference it made in their lives. And, in the long term, very likely—as shown by study after study after study—success at improving educational, health, and work outcomes for the kids who benefit from the tax credit. It’s amazing, when you think about it, that one very simple policy could do so much.

Unfortunately, what’s equally amazing is the politics, with every Republican and Manchin uniting to block it.