Dear Chair Lahood, Vice Chair Carey, and Distinguished Members of the American Workforce Tax Team:
Thank you for the opportunity to submit comments on the upcoming expiration of provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). On behalf of Children’s HealthWatch, a national network of pediatricians and child health researchers, we write in support of strengthening the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Specifically, we encourage the American Workforce Tax Team to consider the following expansions that center the needs of families with low incomes and respond to financial realities they face across the country:
- Strengthen the EITC for workers not raising children in their home;
- Support citizen children in mixed status families by extending the EITC to individuals who pay and file taxes using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN);
- Establish a minimum credit for unpaid caregivers;
- Reduce structural barriers to the EITC and other family tax credits by investing in effective, community-driven outreach efforts and providing adequate resources to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to improve customer service and operations.
Children’s HealthWatch seeks to achieve health equity for young children and their families by advancing research to transform policy. We accomplish this mission by interviewing caregivers of young children on the frontlines of pediatric care in urban emergency departments and primary care clinics in four cities: Boston, Minneapolis, Little Rock, and Philadelphia. Since 1998, we have interviewed over 80,000 caregivers and analyzed data from those interviews to determine the impact of public policies on the health and development of infants and toddlers.
The EITC is a powerful tool to reduce poverty and boost wages for low wage workers and their families. (i) In 2023, the credit kept 4 million people out of poverty. (ii) Families who receive the EITC primarily use the credit to pay for necessities like food, rent, clothing, and school supplies. (iii) In addition to supporting financial stability, the EITC is associated with health benefits across the lifespan. Previous expansions in the EITC have been strongly associated with a decrease in infants born with low birth weights among pregnant women eligible for the credit. (iv) This relationship is notable because low birth weight is damaging to the long-term health and developmental potential of children and costly to the health system, yet few medical interventions are available that effectively reduce the risk of low birth weight. In addition to benefits for infants, children in families receiving the EITC have fewer behavioral health problems, such as anxiety and depression. (v) These children have better school performance, greater college enrollment, and increased work and earning in adulthood. (vi) Research shows that these academic achievements are amplified with the size of the EITC received, with some suggestion that the benefit of larger EITCs are greater for children of color. (vii) Given these positive health benefits, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently categorized the EITC as one of the 14 key evidence-based, cost- effective interventions for improving health in early childhood. (viii)