Washington, D.C. — Today, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-MA) released the committee’s section of the fiscal year 2021 budget reconciliation bill, the legislation implementing President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan. The Ways and Means Committee draft would provide families with a child tax credit of $3,600 for children under age 6 […]
STATEMENT: The Family Security Act Demonstrates There Is Bipartisan Urgency in Addressing Child Poverty
Date: February 5, 2021
Contact: Julia Cusick
Washington, D.C. Yesterday, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) announced the Family Security Act, which would provide a monthly benefit of $350 a month for young children and $250 a month for school-aged children. Crucially, the Family Security Act is not dependent on earnings, meaning that unlike the existing Child Tax Credit families with little or no federal income tax liability, who are often experiencing the worst poverty, would benefit. In a 2015 report, the Center for American Progress proposed making the child tax credit fully refundable, paid monthly, and inclusive of a young child component.
STATEMENT: Biden’s Executive Orders To Address Hunger in the United States Will Save Lives
Date: January 22, 2021
Contact: Julia Cusick
Washington, D.C. Today, President Joe Biden signed a series of executive orders to address the growing hunger crisis in the United States. Following the signing of the orders,
Alexandra Cawthorne Gaines, vice president of the Poverty to Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement:
At a time when tens of millions of people do not have enough to eat, the impact of today’s executive orders cannot be overstated. Today’s orders will keep food on families’ tables and save lives.
RELEASE: CAP Report Outlines the Structural But Solvable Problem of Child Poverty in the U.S.
Date: January 12, 2021
Contact: Julia Cusick
Washington, D.C. The United States consistently has the highest child poverty rate of any OECD country. Nearly 11 million or 1 in 7 children in the United States live in poverty. And systemic inequalities stretching back before the country’s founding contribute to disproportionate rates of poverty for Black, Latinx, Asian American, and Native children. And while these data were calculated before the COVID-19 crisis, already some calculations have found a dramatic escalation in the child poverty rate since the onset of the pandemic.
The Basic Facts About Children in Poverty Getty/Gregory Rec
A boy holds his little brother s hand after picking him up at the bus stop in Biddeford, Maine, April 2020.
Julia Cusick
For more on this topic, see The Basic Facts About Women in Poverty
Women, especially women of color, in the United States are more likely to live in poverty than men, and they need robust, targeted solutions to ensure their long-term economic security. Read
Introduction and summary
In America, nearly 11 million children are poor. That’s 1 in 7 kids, who make up almost one-third of all people living in poverty in this country. This number should be unimaginable in one of the world’s wealthiest countries, and yet child poverty has remained stubbornly high for decades Across the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which is made up of 37 countries including Denmark, New Zealand, Spain, and the United Kingdom, the United States is consistently rank