Many families in the United States benefited from the enlarged Child Tax Credit during the COVID-19 epidemic, but the increased payments had to expire at the start of 2022 after the Senate failed to pass it. Many families in the United States benefited from the enlarged Child Tax Credit during the COVID-19 epidemic, but the increased payments had to expire at the start of 2022 after the Senate failed to pass it.
Although almost the entire Democratic Party was behind keeping the expanded payments in place, there was one Democrat who could not get behind the idea: Senator Joe Manchin.
Given there was heavy opposition from the Republican Party, Manchin’s refusal to get behind the expanded Child Tax Credit saw the bigger payments end once the new year arrived.
“I cannot vote to move forward on this mammoth piece of legislation,” Manchin told FOX News towards the latter part of last year.
What would the Democrats’ proposal change?
Ever since, however, the Democrats have been doing their utmost to revive the expanded Child Tax Credit payments.
The reason for Manchin’s opposition is that he wanted there to be a work requirement to be included, which was not the case at the time but is now in the new version. However, this could put off some progressive Democrats.
Childhood poverty rates dropped by a whopping 40 percent as a result of the expanded Child Tax Credit payments, so it is no surprise that some in the party, like Democratic Senator Michael Bennet, have spoken out about how necessary it is to get this program in place once again.
“It should be easier for moms and mother figures to raise their kids, which is why I won’t stop fighting to make the expanded Child Tax Credit, which kept nearly 4 million kids out of poverty last year, permanent,” Bennet tweeted on Mother’s Day.
By introducing a work requirement, though, as Manchin wants, this would see payments withheld from households in which the only income is coming from a parent who receives disability benefits or to grandparents living off their Social Security retirement income.