Sheelah Kolhatkar, a staff writer for The New Yorker, describes the most remarkable part of the Biden COVID rescue plan: its income payments for children. The fate of this experiment depends on electing enough Democrats in 2022 to extend it into the future and convincing Republicans that the program is so popular that they should support it. Now that the legislation has been passed, Biden must work hard to forge a bipartisan coalition to make it permanent.
On Tuesday, March 9th, Amy Castro Baker stood on her front porch and watched as her two teen-age children boarded a bus and went off to school together for the first time in a year. Her sense of relief was profound. Baker, a researcher of economic mobility and an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy & Practice, had been through a challenging period familiar to most parents—and especially to working mothers. For the past year, she had balanced the demands of a full-time job with overseeing her kids’ online schooling, while also cooking, cleaning, and running the household as a single parent. “We’re at the point in my home where it’s a choice between what’s higher risk, covid or my kids’ mental health,” Baker said. “I’m not sure I could have handled another month.” These are the kinds of difficulties that the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9-trillion pandemic-relief bill recently passed by Congress, was designed to address. Benefits in the bill could help millions of families who are facing similar challenges and are living under much greater financial precarity.
The bill, which was signed by President Joe Biden on Thursday, offers a variety of benefits intended to address economic hardship caused by the pandemic. No Republicans voted for the legislation, largely based on the argument that the pandemic will end soon and the economy doesn’t need the help. And it’s true that some aspects of the legislation go beyond the demands of the pandemic, addressing economic disparities that existed before covid-19 hit. The bill includes provisions to give one-time, fourteen-hundred-dollar payments to individuals earning fewer than eighty thousand dollars a year, and to increase unemployment insurance by three hundred dollars per week until early September. But it is the plan’s expanded, fully refundable child tax credit—which is worth thirty-six hundred dollars for each child under age six and three thousand dollars for those aged six to seventeen—that has the greatest potential to change the way that the United States addresses poverty.
A typical child tax credit can only be claimed by people earning enough money to pay taxes in the first place, which excludes those with an earned income of fewer than twenty-five hundred dollars—in other words, those in the most dire need. The new child tax credit works differently: starting in July, the federal government will send cash each month, until December, to parents for every child that they have regardless of the family’s employment status, and the remaining balance will be disbursed once families file their taxes next year. “It will actually maintain and lift living standards for millions of women and their children,” Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, told me, adding that she hopes the credit will eventually become a permanent benefit. “There’s also a massive racial-justice angle here, too. This will disproportionately help families of color, and it will disproportionately bring Black kids and Hispanic kids out of poverty. This is groundbreaking.”
In some ways, the credit resembles much debated proposals to set up a universal-basic-income program, which would send cash to families every month to help them get by. Such a program never seemed possible in the United States, but lessons from the 2008 financial crisis, the Trump Presidency, and the pandemic have changed what policymakers are willing to try. “It signals a turn in the way that we approach alleviating poverty and supporting the unpaid care work of women that makes the economy move,” Baker told me.
It is frankly shocking how much more liberal the Biden Administration is compared to the Obama Administration.
I just had no idea. Really pleasantly surprised.
Biden even supports labor unions! It’s like he’s an actual Democrat 🙂
True, at least we are heading in the right direction, a far cry from the GQP alternative.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/02/joe-biden-is-no-friend-of-unions
Really, a 2 year old article by a professor who is paid by the University of Chicago, one of the most right wing conservative institutions?
That’s the best you can do to refute what Biden has done his first 2 months in office? I suspect that even this University of Chicago professor would now acknowledge that Biden is not an enemy of unions and looks very likely to be a friend.
I can’t post links here, but anyone interested in this issue who doesn’t have an agenda to destroy the Democratic party and defend Trump might want to read an article from The Guardian written THIS MONTH, not 2 years ago:
“Maybe I was wrong about Joe Biden – is he actually the progressive president I was waiting for?
By Arwa Mahdawi
“I was a Bernie fan, but Biden’s policies have impressed me. Still, I’m not hailing him as a ‘transformational’ leader just yet”
This is HONEST criticism. It isn’t saying Biden is perfect, but it also isn’t amplifying far right wing propaganda to help them empower Trump and the far right.
^^The Guardian article that is far more relevant was written March 16, 2021, not the one from 2 years ago that a Trump defender posted.
Thanks NYCpcp, you saved me the trouble of a response. I was going to point out that it was an article from August, 2019, and that, in any case, Biden has shown himself to be more amenable and open to the unions NOW, as president. I’m surprised that The Guardian would give air time to a right winger as the Guardian leans left and it’s one of the go to sources for me. Maybe they were being fair and balanced and wanted to provide an alternate opinion? Obama talked nice about unions but did not do that much for unions during his time in office. On the other hand, he did not trash and demean the unions and enact blatant anti-union laws or executive orders against unions, (to my knowledge). Correct me if I’m wrong.
From the Guardian today, 3-16-21: Instead of simply turning back the clock four years, however, Biden has been pushing forward undeniably progressive policies. The $1.9tn pandemic relief bill that just passed is expected to reduce US poverty in 2021 by more than a third. And many of its provisions won’t be temporary: the Biden administration has indicated that it will aim to make permanent the increase in child credits contained in the bill, which could cut child poverty in half.
How is all this going to be paid for? Partly by – get this – taxing the rich. Biden’s next big move may be the first major federal tax hike since 1993. The White House is expected to propose raising the corporate tax rate, increasing capital gains tax for people earning more than $1m annually, and raising income tax for those earning more than $400,000. Whether all this will get passed by the Senate is yet to be seen, of course, but it’s a big shift in the right direction. end quote
The author of the article is a Bernie supporter, not some right winger. So I wish the people who say that Biden is no better than Trump and there’s no difference would shut the heck up.
Joe Jersey,
Yes, that’s a quote from the same Guardian article I posted (I didn’t realize it was from today!)
It’s a fair, critical assessment. Something that is sorely missing from a few comments on here. It is possible to be fair AND critical!
The U. Chicago professor who wrote the 2 year old Guardian article isn’t really a right winger. I was intentionally trying to use the same kind of “guilt by association” innuendo that certain critics on the left use, in a (failed) attempt to show how ridiculous it is. My real point was really that it was written May 2, 2019, and being used today to push the false narrative that Biden is anti-union (and of course “no better than Trump”).
Here are the 2020 tax rates:
10,12,22,24,32,35, and 37%, Why??
Why not 0,10,20,30,40?
And the income breaks are equally random.
To me it is irrational, illogical, and baffling, as opposed to good clean design with even graduation of steps and fairness.
That’s amusing because the unions—what’s left of them—are thrilled that they finally have a president who will fight for them.
This article is absurd. It was published in May 2019.
Joe Biden sponsored the PRO legislation to overturn “right to work” laws.
It passed the House and now goes to the Senate. No Democrat since FDR and maybe Truman has been a better friend to unions than Biden.
He has proven to be a champion of labor unions.
I hope it’s not too late. Thirty years of cutting taxes and hoping it trickles down was really a disaster for this country. Economic inequality has just EXPLODED and it happened under both Republicans and Democrats. I don’t know if one Presidential term can turn it around but we were clearly going in the wrong direction.
we can hope that this President’s term can open so many doors to possibilities that the voters step up to vote for a second President to come in on a wave of progressive energy and make the possibilities permanent
Biden’s child tax credits will help low income two parent households as well as single parent households. It directly benefits working families that have been largely excluded from any relief plans. Even without an increase in the minimum wage, it should contribute to lifting more families and children from poverty. In education we know that poverty is a significant obstacle to overcome. This is the first legislative action directed at families with children in many years.
Thanks for posting this. Of course the nay sayers will say that Biden is no better than Trump and why isn’t he pushing for universal health care and repealing Taft-Hartley, blah, blah, blah.
Agree with both of you.
The tax credits phase out at the end of 2021. If the Democrats really want to cut poverty, why would they not make it permanent? What do they think six months of payments is going to do for anyone?
And please don’t fall for the line about “cutting child poverty in half”. As teachers, you all should know how this works based on how standardized tests work. If you want to show that American students are “failing” you simply raise the cut scores. If you want to show that your pet program “worked”, you simply lower the test scores. This has been talked about ad nauseum around here, so I know you all understand the concept.
So why don’t you understand that the same thing works for poverty too? If you want to “cut poverty in half”, you simply define “poverty” so low that practically any amount of money will get a lot of people out of “poverty”. Currently the federal poverty line is $26,500 for a family of four. Does anyone really believe that a family of four making $26,501 is not living in poverty? Yet according to federal standards, they are officially “out of poverty”. This is the same statistical voodoo that lets us claim that a minimum wage of $15/hour (which the Dems aren’t likely to do anyway and certainly not before 2026) will “lift people out of poverty”.
How about before you go praising the Dems for their wonderful, “most progressive administration since FDR”, schtick, why don’t you actually try to live on $26,500 or even $31,000 for a year in any but the cheapest rural areas and get back to us? (If you live alone, I believe it’s around $12,000) BTW, low income jobs seldom provide health insurance or paid sick time, so you need to live without that too before passing judgment.
Don’t you think it’s better to live on $26,500 than on $12,000 a year?
The problem is that there seems to be a vocal but very small group of people on the left who want to convince voters that there is no big difference between $12,000 and $26,500 and if they are only getting $12,000/year, they might as well empower the far right who they prefer because they claim that the far right is more “honest” when they tell people that they better shut up and be grateful for the $12,000, while the evil Democrats are lying to them because they “only” are giving them $26,500 instead of $50,000.
Why is the minimum wage $15/hour in NYC? Because people voted for Democrats who raised the minimum wage.
I wish this poster would explain why her own community doesn’t have a $15/hour minimum wage because if her friends, family, and neighbors are not voting for the right candidates, that’s her fault for helping to bash Democrats instead of convincing the people she knows in real life to vote for a higher minimum wage. Unless she is a Russian troll.
I think the most concise response to this tripe is, “Oy!”
Oh vey!
GregB,
You are right – I apologize because I know my responses are far too long-winded. But I find that when these people are allowed to spew their mistruths and right wing propaganda without being called out on it, they start to be believed.
I never underestimate the power of dishonesty. This country came within a hair’s breath of fascism because lies are powerful. The truth is complicated and many people just want simple. They want someone to blame.
^^^hair’s breaDth
“It signals a turn in the way that we approach alleviating poverty and supporting the unpaid care work of women that makes the economy move.”
It reminds me of the controversy ca 1960’s around Israel’s kibbutzes that provided communal child care from infancy—should we be doing this? Shouldn’t each family raise their own kids? Totally missing the fact that when prosperity is lacking in a community, the group needs to pitch in. General lack of prosperity among middle/ working classes has become so commonplace 60 yrs later that we finally get it.
I hope it signals that the magic market cannot solve social problems and that the invisible hand is oppressive.