Last year, the expanded CTC helped families deal with pandemic-related spikes in the costs of goods like gas and food and longer-term increases in expenses like child care. This pandemic-fueled inflation is compounding a longer-term trend: the cost of raising children has been rising faster than inflation for decades. family an additional $296 per month, an amount roughly equivalent to one monthly payment of the expanded CTC for a single child. “According to a recent report from Moody’s Analytics, inflation is costing the average U.S. Many of the families who desperately needed the cushion the CTC provided were left right back in the same stressful position just as prices for basics like food and gas were rising sharply, and the ABC Coalition recently sent a letter to Congress demanding they prioritize tax breaks for families and children rather than corporations that reads in part: The Children’s Defense Fund is a co-chair of the Automatic Benefit for Children (ABC) Coalition, organizations working to create a permanent child allowance, or a guaranteed income, for children in the U.S. But now we have also seen what happens when that will is not sustained: when Congress let the expanded CTC expire after six months without extending it, within just one month child poverty spiked by more than 40 percent and nearly 3.7 million children, including 662,000 Black children and 1.3 million Latino children, fell below the federal poverty line.
It was proof in real time that we know how to end child poverty and we can do it when we find the political will. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted 90 percent of families with incomes below $35,000 spent it on food, utilities, housing, clothing, or education. The expanded CTC was a lifeline that benefited 90 percent of our nation’s children and lifted 3 million children above the federal poverty line in a single month by providing families much-needed cash to afford the basics. Paula continues the program for few more years so I can get my son in there too.April 18 was Tax Day in the United States, and this year, the day was an especially sad reminder that the refundable, monthly expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) that ended in December 2021 was short lived. “She is telling us about the stories they read she wants to come home and read or go to the library and pick out new books. “She is flourishing,” said Antoinette, who also has a 2-year-old son. Every day on the drive home, Katelynn excitedly shares what she learned. MaGee is happy that the program has lived up to her expectations. “I think it helps my daughter and others see themselves in those people who made a difference.” “I definitely believe in empowering and educating the next generation, talking to them about what’s going on today, about history and what kids have been able to do,” she said.
“She is also emulating her teachers at home when she is talking to me and her dad.”Īs a high school college counselor, MaGee feels programs like CDF Freedom Schools are really important, particularly for children of color. My favorite part is everything.”Īlthough Katelynn is not reading yet, her mother is confident that she is getting the foundation that she needs and her CDF Freedom Schools experience will help her transition to kindergarten.“ She is not only learning, she is comprehending she is processing information,” MaGee said. When asked what she likes about it, she responded: “I love everything. “No I don’t like it,” the young scholar said. Her 5-year-old daughter, Katelynn, is a CDF Freedom Schools scholar at the Success in Challenges site and it would be an understatement to say that Katelynn likes the program. MaGee was working with the Woods on some of their other programs.Īlmost six years later, MaGee got her wish. She and her husband, Leon, run Success in Challenges, a social service nonprofit organization in Long Beach. MaGee is referring to longtime CDF Freedom Schools partner Paula Woods.
“I used to say ‘Please, Paula just stay around long enough so that I can put my baby in the program.” “I knew I wanted my baby to be in the program,” she said.
And once she learned more about it, and visited a site, she was sold. When Antoinette MaGee was pregnant she remembers hearing about the Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools® program.