Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar’s End Child Poverty Act Is a Political and Policy Home Run
US reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar just introduced the End Child Poverty Act, which would set up a universal child benefit. It’s a major improvement on previous proposals to help poor and working-class families — and would instantly slash child poverty.
Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib hold a news conference on August 19, 2019 in St Paul, Minnesota. (Adam Bettcher / Getty Images)
The 2021 version of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) was a big improvement over prior and current versions. Unlike those other iterations, the 2021 CTC was fully refundable, meaning that no child was too poor to be eligible for the full benefit amount, and it was partially paid out monthly rather than as a lump sum at tax time in the subsequent year. These features, along with the higher benefit amount, made the program more effective at reaching children in lower-income families.
But the 2021 CTC was also flawed in a number of ways that hugely limited its effectiveness. The next time lawmakers try to enact a similar child benefit, they should pass a better version that fixes the flaws of the first one. The End Child Poverty Act (ECPA), which was reintroduced (one-pager, bill text) yesterday by representatives Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Chuy García, would do precisely that.
There were three major problems with the design of the 2021 CTC that the ECPA does not have:
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