President Biden Set To Revive Child Tax Credit Stimulus Check If Congress Relents: Part Of 2024 Fiscal Year

Tax credit

President Biden aims to restore the monthly $300 stimulus check which was part of the expanded version Child Tax Credit in the 2021 tax year. But he is likely to face stiff opposition from Congress. The Child Tax Credit stimulus check has been widely credited with helping lift families out of poverty during the pandemic and after.

Biden has proposed restoring the CTC stimulus check which was approved as part of the American Rescue Plan Act, which the Democrat president signed in March 2021, immediately after coming to power in January of that year.

child tax credit

The White House reported that the expanded Child Tax Credit stimulus check cut child poverty by half during the period the payments were made. It was first given as monthly payments between July and December 2021. The balance of 50% of the amount was given as a tax rebate against the 2021 income tax returns filed by Americans in the first quarter of 2022.

The Expanded Child Tax Credit Stimulus Check Cut Poverty By Half In 2021

Even taxpayers who did not pay any tax during the year received the amount in the form of a stimulus check. it was either credited to the bank account of the filers or given as a paper check through the US postal department.

President Biden has long been an advocate of growing the economy from the bottom up and middle out, not the top-down trickle effect. in the past two years, he has faced significant challenges. In the face of such momentous change as the pandemic and its economic consequences, his economic strategy has produced momentous progress and spectacular success like the expanded Child Tax Credit stimulus check.

Under Biden’s leadership, the economy has managed to create 12 million additional jobs. That is more jobs in his two years at the top than any president has created in their four-year term. The jobs included 800,000 in the core manufacturing area.

There has also been a slide in the unemployment rate which has fallen to 3.4%, the lowest in over 5 decades. The rate of unemployment among the Hispanic and the Black community is also at record lows. The two years of his presidency have been the best on record for fresh small businesses.

Biden has also taken the initiative to bring down the cost. He has also given families in low and moderate-income groups more breathing space. This includes cutting the cost of prescription drugs, lowering the premium health insurance costs, and lowering energy bills.

Biden has also been instrumental in driving the rate of the uninsured to a historic low. The president also has plans to rebuild the infrastructure of the nation and strengthen the manufacturing base. He is bent on making the economy competitive, investing in innovation, and strengthening parts of the country that have been traditionally deprived of good industries. Finally, he has stressed creating better-paying jobs for workers, even those without college degrees.

President Biden Stays True To His Fiscal Responsibility

President Biden has achieved this while staying true to his commitment to the nation’s fiscal responsibility. The previous administration passed a $2T tax cut that heavily favored the wealthy and the big corporations drastically increased the deficit and was partially responsible for the inflation in 2022.

child tax credit
child tax credit

But Biden cut the deficit by over $1.7T with two years in office. It was also the largest decline in American history. The reforms included laws to rein in Big Pharma, bring down the cost of prescription drugs, and make large corporations and the super-rich pay their fair share of taxes. This alone will reduce the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars within a decade.

The Child Tax Credit Stimulus Check Could Go Back To The Expanded Version Of 2021

The top annual stimulus check for eligible families for children under six would increase to the expanded level of $3,600 from $2,000. For children between 6 and 17, the credit comes to $3,000 per child. Biden has striven to make the credit permanent as part of the Build Back Better legislation. But he faced opposition from the Republicans, and more significantly from Senator Joe Manchin.

The latter’s betrayal scuttled the wafer-thin majority that the President had in the Senate and effectively stymied efforts to make the Child Tax Credit stimulus check permanent. The expanded Child Tax Credit payments effectively died after just a year of payment despite President Biden enjoying a majority in the House of Representatives.

But Biden is firm this time around to bring the Child Tax Credit stimulus checks back for 2024 fiscal and turn it into a permanent feature. Advocates for retaining the expanded version of the stimulus check contend that it is vital that families with children can cope with the basic expenses including food, childcare, utilities, rent, and transport.

They also point out that credit also helps economies at the micro level. Families that receive the Child Tax Credit stimulus check belong to that section that normally spends the money in the local communities and this helps them meet their needs.

Even as families struggle to meet their regular expenses, they are under the grip of high-interest debts including credit card overdrafts. This only worsens their economic situation and makes them more reliant on aid to sustain themselves.

A Columbia University research has revealed that over 3.4 million children stayed above poverty during the 2021 payments. The expiry of the payments affected 65 million American families and their children.

Out of that final figure, close to 10 million children slid back below poverty levels, as revealed by research initiated by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Texas and California have with 1.08 million and 1.69 million children affected severely by the discontinuance of the expanded child tax credit stimulus check.

But 2023 could remain dry as far as federal stimulus checks are concerned. Americans have to fall rely solely on the state stimulus check that is continuing in some states. But even those are limited to a handful of states. The payments are largely a spillover of the 2022 payments initiated by around 20 states to counter the effect of the drastic rise in prices following record inflation.