Child Poverty Is a Choice, and So Is Ending It

How bipartisan legislation, state action, Rx Kids, and The Bridge Project, are building the case for federal and state action to scale success.

May 27, 2026

Our nation’s children deserve a national campaign to cut child poverty, as it negatively impacts every aspect of the lives of children.

A resolution just introduced by Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Sara Jacobs (D-CA) makes several important things clear:

Child poverty negatively impacts all aspects of child well-being.
Investments in our children have been declining.
Child poverty is not inevitable, as the U.S. successfully cut child poverty in 2021.
Child poverty – and the act of ending it – is a policy choice.

The Ending Child Poverty Resolution (H.Res. 1319), which First Focus Campaign for Children endorses, calls on Congress to establish a national child poverty reduction target and to invest in children on the scale proven to work.

It is a moral statement. We must not accept children living in poverty and all the consequences it brings to children in their lives.

But it is also an economic statement, as the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) has highlighted. Child poverty costs the country up to $1.1 trillion annually.

We Know It Can Be Done Because We Did It

Cutting child poverty is doable. In 2021, child poverty fell to a historic low of 5.2%, and that was not an accident. It was the direct result of passage of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and largely driven by a temporary expansion of the Child Tax Credit, which made the credit fully refundable, raised the benefit, and paid it monthly.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an estimated 2.9 million children were lifted out of poverty in 2021 by the Child Tax Credit. Peer-reviewed research has confirmed that cutting child poverty produced both short- and long-term benefits — better health outcomes, reduced child maltreatment, educational outcomes, and improved developmental trajectories, with the greatest gains for the poorest children and the youngest.[1]

Unfortunately, the Child Tax Credit improvements expired after one year. Since then, child poverty has increased to 13.4% in 2024 or to nearly 10 million – a more than doubling of child poverty in three years.

This chart by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation shows the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) child poverty rates produced by the U.S. Census Bureau from 2019 to 2024.

Child poverty did not worsen because the problem became harder. It worsened because Congress chose to stop trying to solve it.

Although the Science on Child Poverty Is Settled, the Political Will Has Been Missing

For decades, policymakers focused primarily on the behavioral disincentive effects of anti-poverty programs — whether safety net benefits discouraged work or self-sufficiency. That framing shaped welfare reform in 1996, drove conditionality into most federal programs, and produced a safety net that has steadily shifted away from a focus on eliminating poverty toward work-conditioned benefits that leave behind the families with the least.

The problem is that this framing almost entirely ignores the best interests and needs of children.

As professors Anna Aizer, Hilary Hoynes, and Adriana Lleras-Muney documented, prior to 2010, 27% of economics research articles of safety net programs studied benefits to children. The predominant focus was on adult behavioral disincentives. Since 2010, that has finally begun to shift: for every article on adult incentives, there are now 2.5 articles documenting benefits to children.[2]

A new generation of research has fundamentally changed what we know. Long-run studies demonstrate that access to food stamps in early childhood improves adult health, earnings, and educational attainment. Medicaid coverage in childhood reduces mortality and increases tax contributions in adulthood, with some estimates showing the program has saved more than twice its cost. The pattern is consistent: investments in poor children pay for themselves many times over. We have simply been measuring the wrong things, on too short a time horizon.[3]

The NASEM child poverty study, which First Focus Campaign for Children helped secure through Congress in 2015, clearly mapped the terrain. Its 2019 report, A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty, found that a monthly $250 child allowance would cut deep child poverty in half within a decade. Combined with a guaranteed minimum child support payment of $100 per month, it would virtually erase deep child poverty in the United States. The analysis confirmed what international research had long shown: income transfer policies have a far larger impact on child poverty than work-focused policies. Work requirements, by contrast, are at least as likely to increase poverty as to decrease it.

The 2021 Child Tax Credit expansion bore all of this out in real time. Families spent their monthly payments largely on necessities — rent, food, clothing, utilities, and school costs. For families earning under $35,000, more than 90% of Child Tax Credit payments went to these categories. There is no evidence that the payments increased spending on alcohol or tobacco. There is also evidence they reduced child abuse and neglect emergency department visits by 22% in the period immediately following disbursements.[4]

Despite all of this, the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBB) moved in the opposite direction. As First Focus on Children outlined in comments to the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Tax this month, OBBB denies the full value of the CTC to 19 million children, or 28% of children under 17.[5]

The Child Tax Credit’s $200 increase – from $2,000 to $2,200 – was easily offset by inflation, and it indexes future adjustments using Chained CPI, the inflation measure least supportive of families. The legislation, as passed and signed into law by President Trump, literally did nothing to cut child poverty.

At the same time, OBBB includes the largest cuts in history to SNAP, which serves 16 million children, and cuts to Medicaid and CHIP that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates will cause 3 million children to lose health coverage.

Food assistance, health coverage, and income support work together to stabilize households and improve child well-being. Cutting all three simultaneously has worsened child well-being. It epitomizes “organized abandonment” with a rhetorical disguise.

A Growing Bipartisan Rejection of the Status Quo

Here is what makes this moment different from earlier fights: across Congress, in statehouses, and in communities, there is a widening and increasingly bipartisan recognition that the status quo on child poverty is unacceptable and that solutions are at hand.

In Congress, a cluster of bipartisan bills signals genuine dissatisfaction with how the Child Tax Credit has been designed to exclude the children who need it most.

The American Family Act (H.R. 2763/S. 1393), introduced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Suzan DelBene (D-WA), and Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and Sens. Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) would make the Child Tax Credit fully refundable, substantially larger (from $2,200 to $6,360 for newborns, $4,320 for children ages 1-to-6, and $3,600 for children ages 6 through 17), and paid monthly. This is the most comprehensive and substantial proposal for reducing child poverty.

The bipartisan Stronger Start for Working Families Act (S. 3596), led by Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and Todd Young (R-IN), would eliminate the $2,500 earnings threshold that currently locks the lowest-income families out of the Child Tax Credit entirely. Right now, a single mother earning $2,400 a year receives nothing. A parent earning $10,000 would see their credit rise from about $1,125 to $1,500 per child — still short of the $2,200 wealthier families receive, but a real step toward inclusion. This change alone would benefit approximately 3.5 million low-income children.

The bipartisan Working Families Disaster Tax Relief Act (S. 3432/H.R. 6645), introduced by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Rep. Jacobs (D-CA), fixes another perverse inequity: families whose income drops due to a federally declared disaster lose access to the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) at the precise moment they can least afford to. This bill would allow them to use prior-year income — the same provision Congress authorized after Hurricane Katrina and during COVID-19.

The bipartisan Supporting Newborn Parents Act of 2026 (H.R. 8806), introduced by Reps. David Valadao (R-CA), Tom Suozzi (D-NY), Blake Moore (R-UT), and Debbie Dingell (D-MI), creates a separate $2,000 refundable tax credit for newborns, available either at tax filing or as an advance payment shortly after birth. It is designed to reach the babies and parents who need it most, with benefits available from the first dollar of earnings and allowing prior-year income substitution when wages fall due to childbirth.

The Working Parents Tax Relief Act (H.R. 8305), introduced by Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-MI), would expand the Earned Income Tax Credit by up to $5,500 per child under age 4, for up to 3 children, and raise the maximum qualifying income to nearly $100,000 for families with young children. Joe Hughes at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) estimates “about 10 million adults and 8 million children across the nation would benefit” with the “average tax cut for households affected by the bill would be nearly $4,500.”

Taken together, these bills represent a growing consensus in Congress that acknowledges the current Child Tax Credit imposes “baby and child penalties” on kids who need the credit the most, and that Congress knows ways in which to fix it when it chooses to do so.

As we noted in our Ways and Means comments, another bipartisan approach passed out of the Ways and Means Committee in 2024 under the bipartisan leadership of House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) and Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) would also have made progress in cutting child poverty.

The exclusion of 19-20 million children from the full Child Tax Credit in OBBB was not an oversight. It was a decision, and one that an expanding group of members from both parties is openly rejecting.

Polling confirms the public is way ahead of Congress on the matter of cutting child poverty. In a poll conducted in April 2025, Lake Research Partners found that voters supported a fully refundable, expanded Child Tax Credit by an 83-11% margin.

A previous Lake Research Partners poll found that voters supported the idea of setting a “Child Poverty Target to cut child poverty in half in 10 years” by a margin of 70-20%.

States and Communities Are Not Waiting

States and communities are already moving forward with policies that demonstrate reducing child poverty is both achievable and politically viable.

For the 2026 tax year, 15 states now provide Child Tax Credits, with 11 fully refundable: California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Vermont. Five states expanded their credits in 2025 alone.

States like New York and California have enacted versions of a Child Poverty Target.

After New York enacted its target, it expanded the Empire State Child Credit – up to $1,000 per child under age 4 and $500 per child ages 4 through 16 – and eliminated a provision that had blocked the poorest families from receiving the full credit. Analysis of this single initiative finds it could reduce child poverty statewide by more than 8%; combined with expanded child care investments, the reduction could reach 17.7%.

New York also launched the BABY (Birth Allowance for Beginning Year) Benefit, providing a $1,800 one-time payment at birth for families receiving public assistance.

Stimulating much of this New York action is The Bridge Project, a 501(c)(3) program launched by the Monarch Foundation, which has been providing unconditional cash – up to $1,000 a month — to pregnant women and new mothers through the first 1,000 days of their child’s life since 2021. The results are striking and include better physical health, improved mental health, reduced stress, higher graduation rates, higher earnings, and stronger household stability.

Since its inception, The Bridge Project has expanded beyond New York City to 13 other states across the United States with a commitment of nearly $100 million.

Holly Fogle, co-founder of the Monarch Foundation that incubated the program, recently spoke about the project on the Invisible Americans podcast.

Maryland Governor Wes Moore recently announced one of the most recent project expansions, though the State of Maryland should take additional steps itself.

Michigan’s Rx Kids program is also an incredibly compelling demonstration program. The Rx Kids initiative was launched in Flint, Michigan, by Dr. Mona Hanna and Dr. H. Luke Shaefer and provides a $1,500 cash “prescription” during pregnancy and $500 per month throughout a baby’s first year with no strings attached.

Early evidence shows dramatic results: markedly increased housing security, reduced food insecurity, drops in eviction rates, and improved maternal mental health, including reduced postpartum depression.

A study found infant maltreatment allegations have declined significantly after the program launched.[6]

Rx Kids has since expanded to Kalamazoo, Detroit, the Upper Peninsula, and Pontiac, with millions in state budget funding committed for broader statewide expansion.

As Dr. Hanna puts it:

As a pediatrician, I often wish I could prescribe away poverty. Rx Kids is the manifestation of that wish.

These programs are incredibly important policy demonstrations — proof of concept that income transfers to families with children significantly improve outcomes, that parents spend the money on their children’s needs, and that communities across the political spectrum are willing to invest in their youngest residents when given the opportunity.

What a National Child Poverty Target Would Add

All of this activity in Congress, in state legislatures, in cities and communities reflects a genuine and growing national consensus that the status quo of child poverty is unacceptable. What it lacks is coherence, scale, and accountability at the federal level.

This might begin with the creation of a Child Poverty Target that commits to slash child poverty by half or more. It would create a measurable national goal, require annual federal reporting on progress, and give advocates, journalists, and voters a standard for holding lawmakers accountable for action.

We have seen this work.

In 1999, British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared a national target to cut child poverty in half within a decade and eliminate it within 20 years. That commitment, backed by concrete policy investment, succeeded — the UK cut its child poverty rate in half during the first decade while U.S. progress stagnated. Canada introduced an expanded child allowance in 2016 and reduced poverty by one-third in just two years.

At home, the United States itself demonstrated in 2021 what rapid, measurable progress looks like when the political will is present.

The Tlaib-Jacobs resolution draws on these precedents. It calls for a national target, investments on the scale of the 2021 CTC expansion, and particular attention to the children most often left behind, including those in the earliest years of development.

The False Economics of Inaction on Child Poverty

As noted before, NASEM reports that child poverty costs the United States between $800 billion and $1.1 trillion annually in reduced productivity, higher health expenditures, greater crime, and diminished long-term economic output.

Elizabeth Ananat and Irwin Garfinkel at Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy estimated that making the Child Tax Credit fully refundable to the 19-20 million currently left behind would generate approximately $10 in societal benefit for every dollar invested.

As Aizer, Hoynes, and Lleras-Muney explain:

The United States provides less aid to families with children as a share of GDP (0.6 percent) than most countries. Among 37 OECD countries, only Turkey provides less… Countries that provide less aid to families with children have higher rates of child poverty. Among these same 37 countries, only Turkey and Costa Rica have higher child poverty rates than the United States.[7]

The question has never been capability. It has always been will — and increasingly, the will is forming, in communities and statehouses and on both sides of the aisle in Congress.

The Path Forward: Cut Child Poverty Now

The Ending Child Poverty Resolution, the various bills to improve the Child Tax Credit, the state tax credits, New York’s state and non-profit initiatives, and Rx Kids expanding across Michigan all demonstrate the same result: the American people, across parties and geographies, are no longer willing to accept child poverty as inevitable.

Polling verifies this, as voters supported a fully refundable and expanded Child Tax Credit and cutting child poverty by wide margins.

The evidence is also overwhelming and growing.

What children need is for Congress to listen to the American people, review the evidence, take action, and hold itself accountable for improving outcomes for children. It is important for federal action to accompany the work by states and local communities to cut child poverty because all children, including kids in states like Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Florida, deserve the same commitment as children in states and localities that have lower poverty rates or have already taken action to cut child poverty.

A federal commitment makes that universality possible.

Children are not just human “becomings” deserving support because of their long-term return on investment. They are human beings with fundamental needs, rights, and dignity in the here and now.

Kids can’t wait.

How to Help Cut Child Poverty

Consider donating to support our efforts to cut child poverty: we are working to advance federal and state policy changes that commit to reducing child poverty.
Contact your federal and state representatives: tell them to cosponsor any of the bills mentioned above that support creating a Child Poverty Target and/or legislation to cut child poverty.

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