Arizona families are suffering from poverty now, as they will not receive a monthly deposit from the child tax credit for the first time in more than six months. The program that benefited a lot of Americans, was supposed to be part of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better initiative.
795,000 payments benefit Arizona families
According to Cronkite News, through December, the Department of Treasury delivered approximately 795,000 payments per month to Arizona families, which served as an advance on the credit they will receive when they submit their 2021 federal income tax returns.
However, those payments, which totaled $423 per month on average across the country, came to an end in December after Congress failed to reach an agreement on an extension.
Kelly McGowan, deputy director of Wildfire, an Arizona anti-poverty advocacy group, said that family income is down by $300 per child, and she believes that families are looking for any resource they can find to help make ends meet in order to survive.
She also claimed that since the child tax credit payments have ceased to be received, an increase in the number of people seeking rental help has emerged.
American Rescue Plan
American Rescue Plan package extends unemployment benefits, keeps eviction and foreclosure moratoriums, and increases the Child Tax Credit while making it entirely refundable.
It helps fund COVID-19 testing and vaccination programs, reimburses state and local governments for lost tax revenue, and reopens schools from kindergarten through eighth grade securely.
As per the report, the Department of Treasury estimated that over 1.3 million kids were qualified for the tax credit, which distributed over $2.1 billion to Arizona families over six months. Those families were more likely to utilize it on food, bills, and clothing for their children.
Manchin could not support child tax credit
According to CNN, Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat basically put an end to the discussions over the Build Back Better proposal last month when he stated that he could not support the measures, particularly the expanded child tax credit.
The Senate has stated that it intends to revisit the package and, if necessary, alter or break up the measures into those that Manchin and other moderate Democrats would support. President Joe Biden, on the other hand, recently indicated that the expanded credit may end up on the cutting floor.
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