“A drop in the number of households with children reporting food shortages and difficulty paying household expenses may be related to child tax credit checks issued last month,” according to the results of a survey that takes “the pulse of US households (House Pulse Survey).
The US $ 1.9 trillion rescue plan was finally approved by Congress on March 10 and signed the next day by Joe Biden.
The Covid-19 pandemic has cast a harsh light on inequalities in the United States, where there is no social safety net and where the savings rate is low or even non-existent for the most modest households, as well as the poor. Hispanic minorities. When he arrived at the White House, Joe Biden lamented “the scandal” of a country, the main economic power in the world, where so many people go hungry.
“One in seven households in the United States, and more than one in five in black and Latino households, report that they do not have enough to eat,” he emphasized in February while defending the American Rescue Plan. “This includes nearly 30 million adults and 12 million children.”
To address this situation, one of the flagship measures of the 1.9 trillion plan is the expansion of tax credits for the care of children from whom the most modest households were previously excluded.
The tax service (IRS) began issuing a monthly advance tax credit for children in mid-July, recalls the Census Bureau.
“About 35 million families received the first monthly payment of up to $ 300 for each child 5 years old or younger and up to $ 250 for each child 6 to 17 years old,” he says.
It adds that households with children who reported food shortages decreased by 3 percentage points between surveys conducted before and after these payments.
“Adults in households without children have not seen a change in food insufficiency during the same period,” he notes. Many people who participated in the survey indicated that the checks received paid for a multitude of things.
But nearly half (47%) said they spend it on food. Additionally, 17% of households with at least one child under the age of 5 reported spending this check on child care. Payments will continue monthly through December.
