The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) will convene an ad hoc committee of experts to assess federal policies impacting child poverty required of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023. In so doing, the committee will solicit and consider public comment on child poverty, the Child Tax Credit (CTC), and Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) including input from people with lived experience. The study will also address the following questions:
• What are the impacts of the federal child tax credit and the earned income tax credit in 2021 on the level of poverty for all U.S. children and the level of poverty for specific populations of U.S. children?
• How was the child tax credit implemented in 2021? How did the implementation of the program impact participation and therefore its effectiveness for reducing child poverty?
• Among children in different racial and ethnic origin groups and in immigrant families, and other populations of interest, such as children in urban and rural areas, how did the implementation of the child tax credit in 2021 facilitate or reduce program access and therefore its effectiveness for reducing child poverty?
• What changes to the tax rules and requirements and the procedures for administering the child tax credit and earned income tax credit, if adopted, would further reduce the number of U.S. children in poverty?
According to the Congressional charge, poverty is to be assessed using U.S. Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM).
Specific populations of children may include but are not limited to the following considerations: parents' level of employment or educational attainment, parents' marital status, parents' citizenship status or nativity, children's living arrangements, safety net program participation, disability status, racial or ethnic origin, immigrant generation, family size, age, or area of U.S. residence.