JUST THE FACTS:  Child Tax Credit Helping Families of 1.6 Million Virginia Children

From Muckraker Strategies, “a woman-owned media relations firm representing a portfolio of progressive clients.”

This week, Congress debates the Build Back Better Act, legislation that includes the continued expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC), one of the most important tax cuts for families in a generation.

Since July 15, the families of approximately 1.6 million Virginia children have received monthly payments as part of the expanded CTC, injecting hundreds of millions of dollars into the Commonwealth’s economy. In July and August alone, the CTC lifted 3 million children across the country out of poverty. The expanded CTC payments are helping all families succeed, from those struggling to cover basic needs like food, rent, and other bills, to those needing help with childcare and college savings.

Congress must not let this vital tax cut expire, as the stakes for working families in Virginia and elsewhere are enormous. To separate fact from fiction, we’ve put together the following fact sheet:

The Child Tax Credit had an immediate impact in Virginia.

• After just the first month of Child Tax Credit payments, the Census Bureau reports an estimated 1.5 million children received a combined total of $377.5 million in benefits, reducing the number of families with children who reported food insecurity by more than 20%.

Virginians use the Child Tax Credit to put food on the table.

• Over half (51%) of families recently surveyed reported using CTC payments to purchase food for their families. 34% managed bills, and 29% made rent or mortgage payments.

Without the Child Tax Credit, Virginia families stand to lose more than $2 billion in life-changing benefits in the next year.

• If Virginia’s Congressional delegation doesn’t act to make the expanded Child Tax Credit permanent, Virginia is estimated to lose $2,319,408,768 in CTC benefits, 11,678 full-time jobs, and $686,377,228 in consumer spending over the next 12 months.

Economists from Virginia and around the country agree: the CTC doesn’t keep people from working.

• Citing “potential tremendous immediate and long-term benefits for children and their families,” 448 prominent economists called on Congress to make the expanded CTC permanent. In their open letter to the Congressional leadership, the economists, including Virginia’s Jonathan Colmer and William Skimmyhorn, argue that the Child Tax Credit has a negligible impact on employment. In fact, a joint study from Washington University in St. Louis, UNC-Greensboro, Appalachian State, the Urban Institute and Humanity Forward showed that 94 percent of eligible parents planned to work the same or more hours upon receiving the Child Tax Credit.

According to the latest research from the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis, in Virginia:

• 37% of Virginia families reported mostly using their CTC to pay down debt, 32% mostly spent their CTC, and 31% mostly saved it.

• The most common uses of the CTC payments among Virginia families were purchasing food for their family (51%), managing bills (34%), and paying their rent/mortgage (29%).

• Eligible Virginia families experienced lower rates of food insecurity, trouble with bills, and difficulty with housing payments after CTC payments went out.

• Black Virginia families were most likely to receive CTC payments (74%), followed by Asian families and those of other races/ethnicities (72%) and white (70%) families. However, fewer than half of Hispanic and Latino Virginia families reported receiving the CTC.