Children Left Behind by the Child Tax Credit in 2022
In 2021, the child poverty rate fell to a historic low of 5.2%, largely due to the American Rescue Plan’s expansion of the federal Child Tax Credit. Key to this historic reduction in child poverty was the extension of full Child Tax Credit eligibility to low and moderate income families formerly left behind. Prior to the 2021 Child Tax Credit expansion, approximately one in three children nationwide were left out of the full Child Tax Credit because their family incomes were too low to qualify. This disproportionately excluded children of color, young children, children in single parent families, children in larger families, children in rural areas, and more. Because the 2021 Child Tax Credit expansion was temporary, children historically excluded from the full Child Tax Credit are left behind once again. This analysis provides updated estimates of the share of children ineligible for the full Child Tax Credit in 2022, overall and income, race/ethnicity, and family type. It reveals that the full Child Tax Credit was kept out of reach of 18 million children in the United States in 2022, representing 26% of all children. Children in groups previously excluded continued to be left out at high rates, including more than 90% of children in poverty.
Key Findings
In 2022, 18 million children under age 17 (or 26% of all children) were ineligible for the full Child Tax Credit because their family’s income was not high enough to qualify.
There was also substantial inequity in access to the full Child Tax Credit across population subgroups. 38% of Black children, 40% of Latino children, 48% of children living with a female single parent, and 35% of rural children were ineligible for the full Child Tax Credit.
91% of children living below the poverty line and 36% of those living between 100% and 200% of the poverty line were ineligible for the full Child Tax Credit, versus 5% of children living above 200% of the poverty line.
Suggested Citation
Collyer, Sophie, Megan Curran, David Harris, and Christopher Wimer. 2023. Children Left Behind by the Child Tax Credit in 2022. Poverty and Social Policy Brief, Vol. 7, No. 4. Access at www.povertycenter.columbia.edu/publication/2023/children-left-behind-by-the-child-tax-credit-in-2022