For Immediate Release | December 16, 2022
Contact: Jim Hile – Director of Digital Engagement and Communications
jim@expectations.org
New Campaign mobilizes teachers, parents, students, and community members to join justice-motivated advocates in holding Congress accountable in their responsibility to support children and their families.
Today, The Expectations Project, a D.C.-based nonprofit mobilizing people of faith to demand excellent public schools for children who are Black, Brown, in poverty, or otherwise marginalized, calls on Congress to restore the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC).
In 2021, Congress expanded the Child Tax Credit as part of the American Rescue Plan. The impact on families and children was vast and immediate. According to the Census Bureau, the CTC expansion pulled nearly 3 million children out of poverty and food insecurity among children fell to a 20-year low. And according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the CTC expansion improved conditions for children of all races and ethnicities and narrowed differences in poverty rates between them, and Black and Brown children experienced the greatest benefits.
Congress allowed the program to expire at the end of 2021 and immediately, the benefits of the program evaporated. The program never should’ve been allowed to expire. In its current iteration, nearly 19 million children receive only partial credit or none at all, because their parents’ earnings are too low. This is wrong. The expanded Child Tax Credit should be restored for 2023 and made permanent, without barriers and restrictions that make it too difficult for too many to access benefits of this program.
“We are striving to create the world we want and need, especially for students,” shared Zakiya Jackson, President of The Expectations Project. “At TEP we believe that this world, which already holds the resources needed for everyone to thrive, should ensure that the needs of children are met in abundance. It is impossible to realize this dream when many families and communities are barred from financial resources and social networks.”
The Expectations Project mobilizes people of faith to act nationally and locally to eliminate education inequity.
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