Democrats want to send up to $ 3,600 per child to households

Democrats in the House are expected on Monday to unveil their plan to send up to $ 3,600 per child to families, a massive but temporary expansion of household emergency relief that experts say could lift millions out of poverty.

The proposal, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News, would add more detail to President Joe Biden’s call to expand children’s tax credit as part of his $ 1.9 trillion Covid-19 relationship bill. An assistant said the plan was subject to change before it was formally released.

• The proposal would generate $ 3,600 per year for children under 6 and $ 3,000 for children under 18.
• The money would be distributed by the IRS in monthly installments from July.
• The payments would gradually disappear for individuals earning more than $ 75,000 and couples earning more than $ 150,000.

The proposal would increase the size of the children’s tax credit, which under current law provides $ 2,000 for children under 17 and is paid annually.

Representative Richard Neal, D-Mass., Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement that the pandemic is “driving families deeper into poverty, and it is devastating.”

“We’re making the tax credit for kids more generous, accessible and by paying it out monthly,” said Neal. “This money becomes the difference between a roof over someone’s head or food on the table. This is how the tax code should work for those who need it most, and as long as I’m chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, that’s what you can expect from us. “

The proposal is expected to be included in Biden’s full $ 1.9 trillion contingency plan, although it will have to meet certain technical criteria as the Democrats seek to advance through a congressional process that will allow them to find a possible GOP filibuster in the Senate to bypass.

A push for a $ 15 federal minimum wage was already ineligible under the parliamentary rules governing the process, known as reconciliation, Biden said.

While Republicans have criticized the $ 1.9 trillion plan as too big, it’s possible that increasing the tax credit for children will gain at least some bipartisan support. Senator Mitt Romney, R-Utah, released his own plan on Thursday to give households even greater child support and on a permanent basis. Romney funded his plan in part by cutting back on other spending programs.

A Romney spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Democrats’ plan. The White House also did not respond to a request for comment. Rosemary Boeglin, a White House spokesman, said last week that the Biden government wants to work with lawmakers to come up with a permanent plan to increase aid to families with children.

By increasing the amount of aid the US provides to families with children, the country would be more in line with the amount of aid provided by other developed countries, which also tend to have less child poverty. The Covid pandemic has put pressure on families, leaving millions of people out of work and closing schools across the country.

According to the Center for Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, Biden’s economic aid agenda – including increasing child tax credits and other measures – would halve the U.S. child poverty rate.

While plans to increase assistance to households with children are widely supported by Democrats, Neal’s proposal received some technical criticism from progressives. After The Washington Post first reported on the plan on Sunday, Matt Bruenig, an analyst on the left, wrote that “the administrative design is a mess here.”

Bruenig wrote that the plan made a mistake in using tax information from previous years to determine the size of a family’s monthly payment, even though their eligibility for the program is based on the current year.

“This will lead to * both * underpayments and overpayments. And the overpayments will lead to chargebacks through surprising tax bills,” Bruenig wrote in a post on Twitter.

The plan will also likely face criticism from Republicans, who have pushed for the aid package to be scaled down and made more targeted.

A counter-proposal from 10 Republican senators last month, including Romney and Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska lowered the Child Tax Credit hike.

Sens. Florida Marco Rubio and Utah’s Mike Lee, who have backed efforts to increase the size of the child tax credit, also opposed Romney’s plan, suggesting that GOP support may be limited. The two senators said they did not support helping families where parents are unemployed.

“We have long said that the tax credit for children should be further increased to help working families. In the current pandemic support bill, we would support an increase in the tax credit for children to $ 3,500 and $ 4,500 for young children,” the two said. senators. .

“However, we do not support converting the child tax credit into what has been called a ‘child benefit’, which is paid out to all parents as a universal basic income. That is not a tax credit for working parents; it is social assistance benefit.” added.