It's Child Tax Credit Awareness Day, and if you didn't know that before, now you do. Vice President Kamala Harris is making a big push to publicize and explain the newly expanded tax credit included in the American Rescue Plan.
Aside from being considerably bigger than the previous version, the biggest change to the child tax credit is, of course, that a good portion of it will now be sent out monthly. Qualified families can be paid up to $300 per month for children under 6 and $250 per month for older children, which should allow a more stable income source during the pandemic and its recovery; for families that did not receive stimulus checks or file tax returns last year, registration is now available at ChildTaxCredit.gov. The first payments will be sent out on July 15.
The main reason the Biden administration is pushing out information about the newly expanded tax credits as aggressively as possible is that Americans not plugged in to the dystopian hellscape known as the news cycle may still not know that the new payments even exist: While anyone who's filed recent income taxes will be checked for eligibility and receive the payments automatically, those who don't have that information already on file will have to register for it themselves. The money can't help working families if they don't know about it.
Another reason might be that the administration is especially eager to make sure working class women know about the resources Democrats (and only Democrats) fought to make available to them. Providing major pandemic relief was something that Democratic officials had to do despite Republican obstruction at every turn, so you can bet Democrats are going to be making very sure midterm voters know who deserves the credit.
Aside from being considerably bigger than the previous version, the biggest change to the child tax credit is, of course, that a good portion of it will now be sent out monthly. Qualified families can be paid up to $300 per month for children under 6 and $250 per month for older children, which should allow a more stable income source during the pandemic and its recovery; for families that did not receive stimulus checks or file tax returns last year, registration is now available at ChildTaxCredit.gov. The first payments will be sent out on July 15.
The main reason the Biden administration is pushing out information about the newly expanded tax credits as aggressively as possible is that Americans not plugged in to the dystopian hellscape known as the news cycle may still not know that the new payments even exist: While anyone who's filed recent income taxes will be checked for eligibility and receive the payments automatically, those who don't have that information already on file will have to register for it themselves. The money can't help working families if they don't know about it.
Another reason might be that the administration is especially eager to make sure working class women know about the resources Democrats (and only Democrats) fought to make available to them. Providing major pandemic relief was something that Democratic officials had to do despite Republican obstruction at every turn, so you can bet Democrats are going to be making very sure midterm voters know who deserves the credit.