3 questions for an expert on why the spike in child poverty is a policy choice

The United States’ child poverty rate more than doubled from 2021 to 2022, according to data released by the Census Bureau earlier this month. The primary driver of the jump, from 4.6% to 12.4%, a surge affecting millions of children, was the end of the child tax credit expansion at the end of 2021.

As part of the COVID-19 relief plan, the child tax credit provided parents with an extra $250 to $300 per month per child. While President Biden, the Democrat-controlled House and the vast majority of Democratic senators supported extending the program, it faced resistance from Republicans and democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.

The data from the Census Bureau follows previous studies showing massive spikes, including a Columbia University report that showed nearly 4 million kids fell into poverty in the first month after the enhanced tax credit program ended.

Yahoo News spoke about the issue with Nikhil Goyal, a former staffer for Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has written about the topic in his 2022 book, Live to See the Day: Coming of Age in American Poverty, and in a New York Times op-ed published this week. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How was the recent spike in child poverty a policy choice?

The census found that between 2021 and 2022, some 5 million children were plunged into poverty, the single largest yearly increase in recorded history. It is a direct consequence of the failure to pass Build Back Better, which would have included a permanent expansion of the child tax credit.

I worked very hard with my colleagues on the Senate Budget Committee and other offices in the Senate to try to pass that piece of legislation, but unfortunately, one Democrats and 50 Republicans were opposed, and so it's a great scandal, a moral scandal, that millions of children are suffering in chronic and desperate poverty because of a series of policy choices that were made by the Senate in 2021.

We heard from Manchin and others that among their concerns is that families were not using the money wisely, that they'd be spending it on drugs and other items, that it creates dependency on the welfare state. These are just unfounded assertions. The research shows very clearly that when the expanded child tax credit was first implemented in July 2021, up until the end of the year, it dramatically reduced child poverty and food insecurity and overall economic hardship. This is an issue that affects not just people living in poverty, but people in the middle class and the working class. The child tax credit in particular has reduced the cost of living for middle income families who have used that on child care, on housing, on food or clothing and other basic essentials that help children grow up and thrive during their childhoods.

Politics and public policy are a matter of life and death. The decisions that people in Washington, in our state legislatures or school boards make, have enormous implications for how we live our lives and affect all of us.

Read more: US poverty rate jumped in 2022, child poverty more than doubled: Census, from ABC News

What are some of the long-term effects of child poverty?

In my book, I traced the lives of three Puerto Rican children who grew up in the poorest neighborhood of Philadelphia — Kensington — and the toll that child poverty has on their lives is just astonishing. They have to endure evictions and housing insecurity, they run out of food by the end of the month and so they are hungry. They are living in neighborhoods that are afflicted by gun violence and other forms of violence. That means that they cannot walk down the street without the fear of getting shot.

The issues that children are enduring don't get left behind when they enter school, leading to educational instability. The trauma and anxiety and other mental health conditions that come out of poverty deeply affect a child's ability to learn. I think it's a profoundly important issue and one that has major implications for children's well-being and development.

What are some programs that could be put back in place or instituted for the first time that could help alleviate this?

The first and obvious one is reinstating the expanded child tax credit, but also to pass the Build Back Better legislation. That was a piece of legislation that ran the gamut all the way from universal free preschool to affordable child care to home health care, Medicare expansion, tuition-free public college and the expansion of free universal school meals. The bill affected literally almost every aspect of a person's life and would have created a cradle-to-grave social democracy that would have provided real dignity and economic security to all.

On the state level, there are ongoing efforts to implement programs and I'm really encouraged by — New Mexico, Minnesota and Massachusetts, among others — that are really trying to invest in programs like universal free school meals, child care, tuition and free public college. Poverty is not simply a shortage of money and income. It's also the shortage of access to dignified public goods that allow people to live lives of meaning and prosperity.

Read more: New Mexico's free child care program a lifeline for working parents — where available, from Albuquerque Journal