President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris celebrated the disbursement of the first round of expanded child tax credit payments Thursday as the “day the American family got stronger.”
Biden’s $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan,” signed into law in the spring of 2021, bumped up the yearly CTC reimbursement from $2,000 to $3,600 for children under the age of 6 to $2,000 to $3,000 for children ages 6-16 and made children aged 17 eligible for the $3,000 yearly reimbursement.
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Harris opened by noting that the tax credits are sent out monthly, as families struggling to make ends meet must do so each month, not just at the end of the year.
Biden, joined in the White House’s East Room by nine families receiving the expanded payments, added that Thursday is a “historic day.”
“I think this will be one of the things the vice president and I will be most proud of when our terms are up,” the president continued. “It’s a reflection of our belief that the people of this country who need a tax cut aren’t the folks at the top, they’ve got plenty of tax cuts. They’re doing just fine. It’s the people in the middle. The folks struggling or just looking for a little bit, as my dad would say, a little bit of breathing room.”
Biden further claimed that the disbursements will mark the “largest-ever one-year decrease in child poverty in the history of the United States of America.”
According to the U.S. Treasury, Thursday’s payments, the first round sent out at the expanded levels, dispersed roughly $15 billion to the families of nearly 60 million children.
“For the first time in our nation’s history, American working families are receiving monthly tax relief payments to help pay for essentials like doctor’s visits, school supplies, and groceries,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen added in a separate statement. “This major middle-class tax relief and step in reducing child poverty is a remarkable economic victory for America – and also a moral one.”
Biden’s American Families Plan called for an extension of the expanded CTC payments through 2025, with designs on eventually making the fully refundable expanded reimbursement levels permanent.
Democrats have not yet released full numbers for their $3.5 trillion infrastructure reconciliation proposal, but it is expected to include an extension of the expanded CTC in line with the president’s legislative priorities.
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You can watch Biden’s and Harris’s remarks in full below.
