In the News

This year, 11 states either created a state-level child tax credit or beefed up an existing one. Minnesota led the pack. It didn’t just establish a new, permanent credit; it now boasts the country’s most generous one, offering families who earn less than $35,000 as much as $1,750 a year for each child under the age of 17.

These states are enacting a policy that has been an irrefutable success. In 2021, the country embarked on a remarkable, if short-lived, experiment in addressing child poverty. Democrats included a bigger federal child tax credit, to be paid out monthly to all low-income families, in the American Rescue Plan. President Joe Biden signed the legislation into law in March 2021, and starting in July of that year, eligible families received up to $300 a month for each child under the age of 6 and up to $250 for older ones.