I think most people can agree that it’s been a tough year, but it hasn’t been all bad. We’re in the middle of the fastest drop in child poverty in the nation’s history, thanks largely to the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) that went into effect on July 15.
Around 346,000 West Virginia children have benefited from the credit.
According to the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, “The fourth monthly payment of the expanded Child Tax Credit kept 3.6 million children from poverty in October 2021. The Child Tax Credit reached 61.1 million children in October and, on its own, contributed to a 4.9 percentage point (28 percent) reduction in child poverty compared to what the monthly poverty rate in October would have been in its absence.”
That’s pretty major, and the numbers they’ve been tracking have been getting better month by month since it went into effect in July of this year. Given the chance, they’ll just keep getting better.
Contrary to fears that the CTC would discourage employment, the US jobless rate is at a 21 month low, while Governor Justice announced in October that the WV not seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 3.2 percent, the lowest on record.
That shouldn’t be a surprise if you think about it. The boost in monthly income is helping people stay in the workforce while looking after the needs of children.
Recently I’ve been part of an effort to collect and share stories from WV families about what they’re doing with the CTC. Here’s a sample in no particular order of how people are using it to improve their lives: paying for braces for kids, new clothing and shoes for kids, paying off bills, buying food, winter heating, car payments and insurance, kid’s doctor bills, fixing water problems, buying a new toilet, internet access, school supplies, moving to a better and safer home, visiting family members not seen in years, mortgages, utilities and preventing cutoffs, household supplies, and extracurricular activities for kids like sports, camps and cheerleading.
No doubt it’s going to make Christmas a little brighter for many families here and around the country.
Unfortunately, all those benefits could die this month unless congress passes legislation to extend it without restrictions that would cut off those who need it most.
Given the holiday timing, I can’t help thinking about the comments of pre-repentance Scrooge in Dicken’s A Christmas Carol. When reminded of the needs of the poor at this time of year, he asks “Are there no prisons?...And the Union workhouses? Are they still in operation?”, referring to the miserable shelters indigent people were sent to at that time.
When he was told that many poor families would rather die than go to such places, he says "If they would rather die…they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
(I would like to think that we’ve made a little progress in mercy, compassion and social policy since Dickens penned those words in 1843.)
In the end, even Scrooge experienced a change of heart at this time of year and did the right thing. I hope something similar happens in the US Senate, with some help from West Virginia.
(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)
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