WASHINGTON, DC – At a news conference today at which U.S. Senators Sherrod Brown (OH), Michael Bennet (CO), Dick Durbin (IL) and Ron Wyden (OR) introduced the Working Families Tax Relief Act, MomsRising member Julie Groce discussed how her family would benefit. The Working Families Tax Relief Act would expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC) in order to make our tax code work for working families. Groce, an elementary school teacher who lives in Tucson, is mom to a one-year-old. She and her husband both work full-time but struggle to make ends meet and in particular to pay for childcare and health insurance.

“The Working Families Tax Relief Act is essential legislation that can reduce the financial strain facing millions of moms, especially those with young children,” said Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, executive director and CEO of MomsRising, the online and on-the-ground organization of more than one million mothers and their families. “The Trump administration and its allies in Congress gave $2 trillion in tax cuts to the wealthiest individuals and corporations in their tax plan. This bill will make the tax code work for us by expanding and improving the EITC and the CTC, both of which are proven successes that reduce poverty and improve prospects for children. MomsRising intends to make it a very high priority to educate moms and build support for this bill this year.”

The Working Families Tax Relief Act would boost the incomes of an estimated 44 million households, benefiting more than 112 million people and lifting 28 million people above or closer to the poverty line, including 11 million children, by:

• Expanding the EITC for families with children by roughly 25 percent, raising the maximum EITC for a family with two children to $7,290.
• Delivering a meaningful EITC for the first time to working people who aren’t raising children in their home — the sole group that the federal tax code now taxes into, or deeper into, poverty.
• Making the CTC fully refundable so that children in all low- and moderate-income households can benefit from it. Today, the CTC either leaves out or provides only a small, partial credit to millions of the children and families who need it most. The new legislation’s CTC provisions stand in sharp contrast to the Republican-supported 2017 tax law, which denied its advertised $1,000-per-child CTC increase to 26 million children in low- and moderate-income working families.
• Creating a new, fully refundable Young Child Tax Credit (YCTC) for children under age 6. Research shows that this is a period of great importance and vulnerability in children’s lives, and that more adequate family income in these years can improve poor children’s opportunities. This would increase the CTC that these families receive to $3,000 per child under 6.

“Having a one-year-old is incredibly expensive. Between diapers, doctor’s visits, childcare, and more, we struggle to cover everything we need,” Groce said. “We do all we can to make every dollar count, but there are still months where we’re worried about paying all our bills. It’s frustrating and stressful every day. The current Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit are essential for us, and they go straight to necessities like childcare, health care, paying down debt and building our savings. But it’s a drop in the bucket compared to what we need, especially because these credits don’t account for the expenses we face with a child who is so young. By expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit and creating a fully refundable Child Tax Credit with a young child boost, the Working Families Tax Relief Act would be an incredible help to my family and so many others. It would ease so much of the financial stress we face during this special time in our child’s life.”