Families Helped by Child Tax Credit Expansion Work Hard in Low-Paying Jobs

[A MESSAGE FROM THE CENTER FOR BUDGET AND POLICY PRIORITIES]

Nursing Home Aides, Cooks, Pre-School Teachers & Construction Workers Would Get a Boost


by Sharon Parrott and Arloc Sherman

The House AMT “patch” bill (H.R. 3996) would expand the Child Tax Credit by lowering the earnings threshold that families must meet to qualify for the refundable portion of the credit. Under the bill, law, by contrast, families must have earnings above $12,050 in 2008 to qualify for the refundable child tax credit.

According to the Tax Policy Center, this provision would benefit 13 million children — including
2.9 million children who would become newly eligible for the benefit and 10.1 million children who would see their CTC increased due to this provision. Families that are “newly eligible” are those with incomes between $8,500 and $12,050. A broader group of low-income families would see their


CTC increase as a result of this provision, because the size of their credit is based on the amount by which the family’s earnings exceed the threshold.

Who are these families that would benefit? Census data provides important information about these families and the jobs the parents hold:

• Most of the children helped live in families in which a parent works throughout the year. Some 70 percent of the children who would benefit live in families in which a parent works 30 or more hours per week for at least 50 weeks during the year. A majority of the remaining families experienced periods of unemployment during the year, but when they were employed, worked at least 30 hours per week.

• Many of the children helped live in families that include individuals with disabilities.
Nearly one in ten children — 1.1 million children — who would benefit live in a family where either a parent or a child has a disability. An expanded CTC would provide assistance to these families in which parents struggle to maintain jobs and meet the health and other expenses they incur due to the disability.

• Parents who would be assisted work in a broad range of low paying jobs; many perform difficult jobs that provide critical services, like caring for the elderly or teaching young children.

• 480,000 parents provide health care services to the elderly or the ill as nursing home workers, home health aides, personal care assistants, medical assistants, and other low paid health care professionals.

• 240,000 parents provide child care, serve as teaching assistants, or are preschool or kindergarten teachers.

• 310,000 parents earn a living by cleaning or maintaining the grounds of homes, office buildings, schools, or other community institutions.

• 410,000 parents work as cashiers in grocery stores and a broad array of other businesses.

• 470,000 parents work as cooks, waiters or waitresses, or assist cooks with food preparation.

• 360,000 parents earn a living as construction workers, carpenters, or painters.

• 120,000 parents work as laborers in the agriculture sector.

All of the figures presented here are Center for Budget and Policy Priorities calculations based on the March 2006 Current Population Survey.