Back in March, Congress passed the American Rescue Plan — a bill that will cut child poverty by more than half this year alone. Through one-year expansions to programs like the Child Tax Credit, this bill puts us on a pathway to end child poverty within a generation — if (and that’s a big if) we can finally make long-needed improvements permanent.
We call on Congress to finally commit to ending child poverty by making these crucial improvements permanent!
The moral crisis of child poverty existed long before the COVID-19 crisis, and it will continue long after unless we commit ourselves to ending it now. Even before the pandemic, the poverty rate among children under the age of 18 was higher than any other age group in America. And, in the past year, at least 2.5 million more children fell into poverty while countless other families have struggled to keep their kids healthy and fed.
On top of that — voters clearly want this. In an election-eve poll of American voters by Lake Research, voters supported these changes by an overwhelming 71–18% margin.
We cannot defeat COVID-19 and have a sustained economic recovery without addressing child poverty — and we need to do more than polls and one-year fixes.