BY BELINDA LUSCOMBE
GOOD QUESTION
THE NUMBER OF CHILDREN LIVING IN POVERTY IN the U.S. more than doubled in 2022, according to new figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Sept. 12, the biggest increase since it began using its current method to count them. In 2021, 5.2% of children were living in poverty. In 2022 that figure was 12.4%, or about 9 million children. This hike was part of a wider rise in poverty recorded by the Census, some of which can be attributed to inflation. But advocates for children say the leap was particularly stark for kids—and was avoidable.
A rise in the number of impoverished children had been expected, because of the expiration of the enhanced version of the Child Tax Credit program (CTC) that Congress instituted in July 2021 during the pandemic. The expanded CTC gave parents a historically high yearly tax credit of up to $3,600 per child, depending on age, which did not have to be paid back if their tax bill didn’t reach a certain amount.
Those credits, along with bumps in other government benefits, sent child poverty to a historic low in 2021. Now the rates have rebounded. “Our child-poverty rates are back to their 2019 level,” said the U.S. Census Bureau’s Liana Fox in a conference call announcing the new figures. “That Child Tax Credit—making it fully refundable, expanding it to all individuals—had a substantial decrease in child poverty.”
Advocates for children seized on the moment to trumpet the effectiveness of the policy and to lament lawmakers’ decision to end it after six months. “This data once again highlights that poverty in our country isn’t a personal failing, but rather a policy choice,” said Melissa Boteach, vice president of income security at the National Women’s Law Center, in a statement. “Lawmakers have the power to lift millions of women and children out of poverty if they would just choose to prioritize families over their wealthy donors. We know what works.”
But other policy-advisory organizations worried the benefits would provide a disincentive for parents to work and thus push children further into poverty. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated in 2022 that extending the benefits would shrink GDP and reduce tax revenues by
