Child Poverty Spiked After Tax Credit Expired, Early Research Suggests

WASHINGTON – Low-income parents faced more hardship in January after Congress failed to continue the monthly child tax credit payments that slashed child poverty last year.

Child poverty increased 40% without the payments, according to the Columbia Center on Poverty and Social Policy. The payments amounted to $300 per child under 6 and $250 per child under 18 for the vast majority of American families.

“The monthly child poverty rate increased from 12.1% in December 2021 to 17% in January 2022, the highest rate since the end of 2020,” the Columbia researchers said in their latest monthly report. That means an additional 3.7 million children were living in poverty last month, according to the report.