Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer assured us in July 2021 that increasing the kid tax credit score would “reduce the nation’s baby poverty price in half.” Shortly thereafter, President Biden proclaimed that the expanded credit score would “reduce baby poverty in half this 12 months.” The official census numbers are out, and in 2021 the poverty price amongst kids below 18 was 15.3%. It fell a mere 0.7 share level from 16% in 2020 and was nonetheless 0.9 level larger than the pre-pandemic low of 14.4% in 2019, although authorities spent an additional $2.6 trillion on switch funds in 2020-21.
As we identified on these pages, the Democrats’ rosy promise wouldn’t be recorded within the official Census Bureau poverty numbers, as a result of the revenue numbers used to calculate the official poverty charges don’t rely refundable tax credit as revenue to the recipients. Regardless of how a lot cash the federal government pours into any of those tax credit, it should by no means elevate the official revenue measure given the way in which the census defines revenue. The omission of refundable tax credit from the official poverty price calculation isn’t distinctive. The Census Bureau fails to rely two-thirds of all authorities switch funds to households within the revenue numbers it makes use of to calculate not solely poverty ranges but in addition revenue inequality and revenue progress. Along with not counting refundable tax credit, that are paid by checks from the U.S. Treasury, the official Census Bureau measure doesn’t rely meals stamps, Medicaid, the Kids’s Well being Insurance coverage Program, lease subsidies, vitality subsidies and health-insurance subsidies below the Reasonably priced Care Act. In complete, advantages offered in additional than 100 different federal, state and native switch funds aren’t counted by the Census Bureau as revenue to the recipients.
