Dems to unveil $3,000-per-child benefit
WASHINGTON — Senior Democrats on Monday will unveil legislation to provide $3,000 per child to tens of millions of American families, aiming to make a major dent in child poverty as part of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic relief package.
The 22-page bill to dramatically expand direct cash benefits to American families was obtained by the Washington Post ahead of its release.
Under the proposal, the Internal Revenue Service would provide $3,600 over the course of the year per child under the age of 6, as well as $3,000 per child of ages 6 to 17. The size of the benefit would diminish for Americans earning more than $75,000 per year, as well as for couples jointly earning more than $150,000 per year. The payments would be sent monthly beginning in July, a delay intended to give the IRS time to prepare for the massive new initiative.
Romney support
The bill, spearheaded by Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, emerges as congressional Democrats accelerate their plans to enact Biden’s stimulus plan within weeks. It also comes days after Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, surprised policymakers with a proposal to send even more in direct cash per child to American families, lending bipartisan support to the major push for child benefits.
Biden’s proposed child benefit has quickly emerged as a potentially defining feature of his administration’s economic agenda - one that could make a lasting imprint on American welfare policy. Its execution could also prove crucial to deciding Democrats’ ability to maintain control of Congress, given its likely direct impact on the lives of tens of millions of voters.
Despite Romney’s support, several Republican lawmakers and conservative scholars have started criticizing similar measures because they would give government aid both to working and nonworking Americans alike. That has set the stage for a major political clash over the new benefits.
“The pandemic is driving families deeper and deeper into poverty, and it’s devastating . ... This money is going to be the difference in a roof over someone’s head or food on their table,” Neal said in a statement. “This is how the tax code is supposed to work for those who need it most.”
U.S. child poverty
America has one of the highest rates of child poverty in the developed world, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development, in part because it spends less on child benefits than almost any other. Neal’s plan would only create the new benefit for one year, but congressional Democrats and White House officials have said they would push for the policy to be made permanent later in the year.
White House officials and Senate Democrats have reviewed Neal’s legislation and are supportive of the proposal. Aides cautioned some of its details may change between now and final passage of the legislation. It is also unclear whether Democrats can pass the new child benefit through the Senate under the rules of reconciliation, the parliamentary procedure they are using to pass Biden’s stimulus without Republican votes. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, DCalif., has said she is aiming to pass Biden’s relief package, which would include the child benefit, through the House within two weeks.
An analysis by Columbia University researchers of Biden’s proposal found it would cut the number of children in poverty by as much as 54 percent, the equivalent of 5 million children. More than 1 million Black children would be lifted out of poverty by the plan, the researchers found. Biden’s plan has been estimated to cost upward of $120 billion per year.