The Child Tax Credit: What it Means for My Family—and for Yours
August 10, 2021
I just returned from maternity leave—my husband and I welcomed our second daughter, baby Rose, in early March. Given the flurry of activity surrounding the expanded Child Tax Credit that I returned to, I’ve affectionately started referring to Rose as our “littlest tax deduction.”
The expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) is the most effective poverty-fighting effort the federal government has launched in a long time. Every dollar of the expanded CTC means that help is on the way for families to catch up on rent, utilities, food, pay down debt, and save for the future. The expanded CTC can end extreme poverty—and cut child poverty in half—especially among Black and Native American children.
But there is a catch—the CTC expansion expires at the end of a one-year period. If we want this life-changing support to be made permanent, we must ensure that the roll out of the expanded CTC is a success and that its impacts are measured and reported in real time.
SaverLife has a major role to play in this effort. As our 550,000 members are overwhelmingly women with school-aged children, we estimate more than 80% are eligible for the CTC and will directly benefit from its expansion. Our strategy will focus on three components:
Ensuring Access: SaverLife is working to ensure every family claims every penny they are entitled to. We are providing vital information to our members to make sure they sign up and claim the CTC; to combat misinformation about eligibility; and to identify challenges in the rollout.
Encouraging Savings: The CTC provides an incredible opportunity to build financial stability through savings. We are running savings pledges and challenges over the next few months to encourage families to use this opportunity to set aside savings and build wealth. Ninety-four percent of our members are planning to save at least 10% of their monthly CTC payments.
Evaluating Impact: SaverLife will use our unique access to powerful transactional data to measure the impact of the CTC on our members' lives, publishing insights as we find them. Our ability to generate rapid research is critical - because when it comes to the CTC, results can’t wait.
We want all of our partners to benefit from our resources and our research. We have created a dedicated landing page where you can access the latest information, find content to share with your clients, and keep up to date on our findings.
These days, my infant daughter isn’t the only thing keeping me up at night—losing the fight to make the expanded CTC permanent would be a loss of catastrophic proportions. This is an all-hands effort and we hope you will consider SaverLife your partner in this life-changing moment.
Best wishes,
Leigh