The Census Bureau just released national poverty, income, and insurance data for 2023. It’s important to understand income and health insurance trends, but it’s especially important now since Congress will take up major tax legislation in 2025.
One thing we know for sure is that when the Child Tax Credit (CTC) was expanded in 2021, child poverty decreased by 46% overall, with Black and Hispanic/Latino child poverty falling by 6.3 percentage points in each community, impacting 716,000 Black children and 1.2 million Hispanic children. The new data shows that in 2023, the CTC lifted 2.4 million people above the federal poverty line―while important, falling far short of the 5.4 million lifted above the federal poverty line in 2021 by expanded monthly Child Tax Credit payments that included all children in low-income families.
Click here to send a direct message to Congress to expand the Child Tax Credit today.
Many people are facing food and housing insecurity, challenges with high child care costs, and dealing with other hardships that make it harder to make ends meet. Expanding the Child Tax Credit fixes a major flaw in current law: over 18 million children and their families are excluded from the full credit because their parents’ income is too low.
You read that right. Families where a parent can’t work due to illness or being laid off, cannot qualify for the Child Tax Credit at all. And many parents who work at low wages cannot get the full CTC. A single parent earning $15,000 a year and who has two children, will receive less than a family with a parent who has a higher paying job. This is a flaw that does nothing but exacerbate inequity and accelerate the racial wealth gap.
Instead of cutting investments in key programs and services, Congress must prioritize funding for human needs and that means passing an expanded Child Tax Credit that reaches the very poorest households.
Click here to send a direct message to Congress to expand the Child Tax Credit today.
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The COVID, COVID is everywhere edition. Covid-19 cases are soaring. On Oct. 28, 81,457 new infections were reported in the U.S. — the highest number so far in the U.S. Today we will surpass a cumulative total of nine million cases. Rural counties and small metro areas are seeing the worst growth, but infections also are rising rapidly in and around major cities like Chicago and Milwaukee.
Large landlords have filed nearly 10,000 eviction notices in just five states since early September, despite a CDC moratorium that runs through Dec. 31 on people actually losing their homes due to COVID-19-related hardship, according to a disturbing new report. The report, published Monday by NBC News, quotes housing advocates who are worried that the number may just be the tip of the iceberg – and that many evictions could occur once the moratorium expires.
CHN just released another edition of the Human Needs Report. Read on for the latest on the possibility of another COVID-19 response package, continued work on the 2020 Census, a victory for SNAP recipients, and more.
The 3 million kids are missing edition. The coronavirus pandemic has not hit everyone equally. We know that Latinx and Black households are most adversely affected, both in the workplace and in susceptibility to COVID-19. Women, too, have been hit hard, the pandemic’s effects exacerbated by their familiar role as primary caregivers as well as their over-representation in the decimated service industries. But there is a whole other population at risk – children and young people. This week, a groundbreaking study was released that estimates 3 million of the most educationally marginalized children have not seen the inside of a classroom – virtual or in-person – since last March, when most schools shut down. Many of these 3 million are kids with disabilities, English learners, students in foster care, migrant students, and homeless students.
We can’t wait for economic justice. We can’t wait for healing and wellbeing. We can’t wait for safe communities. It is time for a New Deal for Youth that responds to the historic roots and current scale of the crisis. When the once-in-a-lifetime catastrophe is over, our future as a nation will depend on how intentionally we support and invest in this generation.
The number of children without health coverage in the U.S. increased by about 726,000 between 2016 and 2019, bringing the total to more than 4 million uninsured children and reversing years of national progress, a new report finds. The report, issued earlier this month by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, concludes that many of the gains in coverage made as a result of the Affordable Care Act’s major expansions, implemented in 2014, have now been eliminated.
The over the cliff edition. President Trump and Senate Republicans, exuberant over a certain Supreme Court vacancy but considerably less so when it comes to helping Americans to eat or pay rent, are prepared to push millions over the cliff. More than 13.4 million people currently receiving unemployment benefits stand to lose assistance come Dec. 31. Three out of every four states have run out of money to pay for Trump’s Lost Wages Assistance (LWA) Program. New poverty data shows the number of poor people in this country increasing dramatically since May. And, as always, not everyone is being tossed over the cliff equally. Black people and Latinx are more than twice as likely as white people to be poor. Both groups disproportionately work in industries hard-hit by the recession and may face barriers to aid – if it even exists.
We were apart, and yet for one splendid evening we were together. On the evening of Wednesday, Oct. 7, the Coalition on Human Needs held its 17th annual Human Needs Hero Reception. The event, organized by CHN Field and Events Coordinator Nicolai Haddal, was held virtually, for obvious reasons. That didn’t stop more than 100 of CHN’s friends, supporters, and allies, members and partners from coming together in celebration and camaraderie.
CHN Executive Director Deborah Weinstein this week called upon the U.S. Senate to reject the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court, citing Barrett’s past rulings and statements in five main areas: access to health care, immigration, workers’ rights, antidiscrimination, and criminal justice. In her 7-page letter, Weinstein also objects strongly to the Senate’s rush to action on the Barrett nomination while refusing to take action on a COVID-19 relief bill.
“Altered state” edition. President Trump, infected by COVID-19 and then taking a number of powerful medications, called off COVID-19 negotiations, then urged continued talks for a limited package, then was quoted as calling for a bigger package. He was interviewed saying he was cured by his drugs, but that he might not have needed them, and suggested that he was not contagious – even as more than 30 people in his immediate orbit became infected. Speaker Pelosi, who was attempting to negotiate relief, speculated that the President was “in an altered state.” Hard to tell, but two themes were emerging: resistance to even compromise levels of state and local aid sought by Democrats and whipsaw reactions to Wall Street downturns, as stocks plunged whenever it appeared there would be no deal.
This election is too important to wait until the last moment. We all must take extra effort to plan ahead. We all must make sure we don’t let this opportunity to stand up for our shared priorities and vote to protect human needs go by. We can’t afford not to vote
The Americans are broke edition. Nearly 180 million Americans face the possibility of having their utilities cut off. More and more can’t make rent or put food on the table. Just yesterday, more airline workers lost their jobs than at any point in U.S. aviation history. And at Disney, once the “happiest place on Earth,” 28,000 just-laid-off workers aren’t so happy. State governments are facing a combined shortfall of $555 billion over the next few years. It is not too late to tell Senators to do the jobs they were elected to do – protect the American people.