For the past six months, more than 61 million children in roughly 36 million families across the U.S. have received a monthly payment of $250 or $300 per child. Today, some parents may be surprised – in a very bad way – to learn that the monthly payments have ended. Tax credits that would have landed in families’ bank accounts beginning Friday, January 14 won’t happen because the Senate could not agree to extend them.
Archives: Voices
Affordable child care is the boost our economy needs
Child care is one of the biggest expenses many families face — in much of the country, it can run higher than college tuition. Could a national child care program ease that burden? If the Build Back Better bill can be rescued, our country may get another opportunity to make a historic investment in our future.
CHN ‘s COVID-19 Watch: Tracking Hardship, January 7, 2022
The omnipotent omicron edition. Omicron is exploding and testing is falling woefully short. The U.S. is now averaging 610,989 cases a day – a record during the pandemic – and a 227 percent increase from two weeks ago. Hospitalizations in some areas are rising sharply. When one digs deeply into the omicron numbers, there is both bad and good news to be mined.
Holiday cheer: Affordable Care Act smashes enrollment records
Omicron is surging and the Build Back Better Act is stalled. Yet there is some really good news to report this holiday season: a record 13.6 million Americans have signed up for individual coverage under the Affordable Care Act, and that number is only going to increase over the next three weeks.
A Grateful Letter to Human Needs Advocates
How wonderful it would be if this could be a letter of pure celebration – that we as a nation had progressed from urgently needed protections to investments to build our future. We are not there yet. But your unflagging commitment will get us there. We have to get there because so many of our neighbors are behind in their rent, struggling with low pay, still threatened by the pandemic, still fearful of losing family members to deportation or illness.
Which side is Manchin on?
I work hard to make ends meet for my family. But as an educator in West Virginia, that’s hard sometimes — especially with child care to pay for. Fortunately, the expanded Child Tax Credit that Democrats passed this spring has been a lifeline. Those monthly payments mean that my child has food, a roof, electricity, and heat. It means I have less stress and can be a better mother. And it means I can stay employed because I can afford child care. Unfortunately, unless Congress passes the Build Back Better Act now, those payments will expire before the year is out.
In their own words: West Virginians explain why they need home health care
After the U.S. House passed the Build Back Better Act, Ady Barkan knew the bill’s future likely would come down to the vote of one Senator: Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Barkan, a lawyer and progressive activist with a particular interest in home health care, decided to reach out to West Virginians and find out what they thought of the legislation. He then created a video of the responses and posted it on twitter. It has received more than 100,000 views. These are Barkan’s words and the responses he received.
CHN’s open letter to Sen. Joe Manchin on the Build Back Better Act
The Coalition on Human Needs sent a letter to Sen. Joe Manchin this week urging him not to close the door on Build Back Better Act negotiations. “Senator Manchin, so much is at stake, affecting the economic security of your constituents and people nationwide,” the letter states. “Yes, we are facing serious threats from COVID and its continuing economic dislocations. But economists and the people of West Virginia are telling you that Build Back Better will help, without increasing inflation.”
CHN’s COVID-19 Watch: Tracking Hardship, December 17, 2021
The 61.2 million children get coal edition. This week, the U.S. marked two sad milestones. More than 50 million COVID-19 cases have now been confirmed since the pandemic began, and more than 800,000 people have died. The highly contagious omicron variant is here in the U.S. and is ricocheting through Britain and parts of Europe; on Thursday alone, Britain reported 88,376 new infections – the highest number since the pandemic began. “Omicron is spreading at a rate we have not seen with any previous variant,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news briefing.
Build Back Better: Will Congress be the Grinch who steals Christmas hope?
With time expiring in 2021, leaders in the U.S. Senate joined faith leaders this week for a Capitol Hill news conference to urge passage of the Build Back Better Act. Within a day, their quest grew more challenging, as President Biden and congressional leaders acknowledged they were not ready to enact this historic legislation before Christmas. The Senate will return on January 3, a week earlier than originally planned, to resume work on the bill.
End of Child Tax Credit payments a worry for WV families
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The final round of the federal government’s Child Tax Credit (CTC) payments ends today, unless Congress votes to extend them before the year is up. Holly Bradley, a farmer in Pocahontas County, said the extra money she has received this year through the CTC has helped keep her family afloat, and losing it would be a setback. “I feel like that’s going to leave a lot of folks having to choose between what bills they pay,” Bradley asserted. “And what food they’re able to put on the table, and if they can make rent or not.”
Hidden Pain: 167,000 have lost parents or caregivers to COVID-19. What are we going to do about it?
More than 167,000 children – roughly one out of every 450 in the U.S. — have lost a parent or other primary caregiver to COVID-19, according to a new, bipartisan report released last week by COVID Collaborative and Social Policy Analytics. The report, Hidden Pain: Children Who Lost a Parent or Caregiver to COVID-19 and What the Nation Can Do to Help Them, offers a roadmap to support and provide for these children, roughly half of whom are in elementary or junior high school.