In 2019 the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine published A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty, a landmark consensus study report that analyzes various policy solutions to help address child poverty in the United States. Since its publication, the report has been read widely and cited often, and it has informed federal policymaking aimed at alleviating child poverty in this country.

Based on a large body of evidence, the report’s analysis found a child tax credit expansion would reduce child poverty with small losses in employment.  A paper that has recently been circulating in the news media questions this analysis of child tax credit policies and their impact on employment.  We reject the claim that this paper, which has not undergone peer review, indicates an error in the National Academies report.  A single working paper does not change the conclusions drawn from extensive published literature, nor does it mean that the estimates in A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty are in error. 

The committee that wrote the National Academies report comprised academic and policy experts with diverse perspectives who collected and reviewed the evidence and reached consensus on each of the report’s findings and recommendations.  The report underwent the Academies’ rigorous external peer-review process — including review by 13 experts overseen by two eminent economists — before being published. 

The National Academies stand by our report and this specific finding on child tax credits.