Maybe encouraging people to stop having children they can't support would be a more effective way to “pull them from poverty” ?
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Report: Poverty rose more than 40 percent in CT in recent years; child tax credit is needed
Or so “they” say. $300 per week, per child. That’s a lot of money for an unemployed 24-year-old unwed mother of three to manage, no? Add in food stamps, subsidized housing and free medical care, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.
Poverty rose more than 40 percent in Connecticut from 2021 to 2022 after the expiration of key federal programs, with an even sharper increase among children, a new report says.
According to the study, from the non-profit Connecticut Voices for Children, poverty jumped from 8.4 percent overall and 6.8 percent among children in 2021 to 12.1 percent overall and 11.6 percent among children in 2022. An additional 13 percent of residents, including 16.8 percent of children, lived "near poverty" in 2022, the report says.
Preliminary data suggests the rates remained at similar levels in 2023, the most recent year for which numbers are available.
Connecticut's steep and sudden increase in poverty, which also occurred nationally, appears to owe to the expiration of pandemic-era federal policies including an expanded earned-income tax credit and an expanded child tax credit, which greatly benefited families for a brief period.
"The big, real story is child poverty was cut in half in 2021 due to these well-targeted public benefits," said Patrick O'Brien, research and policy director for Connecticut Voices for Children and author of the new report. "And then when you pull those benefits back, child poverty — depending which measure you're using — doubled."
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To address the recent rise in poverty, the report recommends a statewide child tax credit, which it says would cost the state about $275-300 million a year, depending on its specific design, while benefiting more than 500,000 children and lifting more than 6,000 Connecticut residents out of poverty.
"The child tax credit, if well-designed, essentially operates as a cash benefit for the poorest families," O'Brien said. "So it can help address poverty and really give the flexibility families might need to address some of these issues that are pushing families into poverty."
The expanded federal child tax credit, which provided families up to $300 per child, passed in 2021 as part of the American Rescue Plan Act before expiring the following year. Attempts to revive the program at the federal level have been unsuccessful, as have been attempts to introduce a similar policy at the state level.
Emily Byrne, executive director of Connecticut Voices for Children, said she hopes the group's data analysis will help lawmakers pass informed, thoughtful policies to combat poverty.
"We have a dual goal on our quest for economic justice, which is to eradicate child poverty and advance family economic security," Byrne said. "And we can't know we're making progress on these goals without being able to measure them."
“Economic justice” — definition, please.
The new study comes barely a week after a similar report published by the United Way of Connecticut, which found that more than 500,000 households in the state — about 40 percent in total — earned below the level at which they can comfortably afford essentials in 2022. That total, which includes families below the federal poverty line as well as those designated as "asset-limited, income-constrained and employed" had risen 13 percent since 2019, the report found.
40% of all households in CT should recieve cash from the other 60%? Ah, that’s what they mean by “economic justice.”
At a news conference, several state representatives endorsed the idea of a child tax credit and pledged to push for its creation during the upcoming legislative session.
"We're getting worse, not better," said Rep. Anthony Nolan, a New London Democrat. "This is why this session we really need to come out and ... make sure we shift the money necessary to take care of our families in need."
There are an estimated 3,605,944 individuals in Connecticut, living in 1, 442,969 households. 10.3% of those people: 371,412, are considered impoverished and of those, 13.3% — 49,398 are < 18. The Census Bureau says under 50,000 children, the CT poverty pimps claim 500,000. That’s an interesting discrepancy.
By the way, here’s an interesting chart relating national poverty to educational attainment. Because we know that modern education teaches nothing, the relative correlation between education level and income is probably due to personality traits so loathed and denounced by progressives as bourgeoise and Middle-class: hard work, diligence, setting goals, promptness, and, from the skills department, if any, literacy, numeracy and a willingness to show up on time. High school drops outs display none of those, and their poverty rate shows it.
And just because it’s a Friday afternoon and I have nothing better to do that write lengthy posts, here’s a bit of a (Republican controlled) House Budget Committee’s press release on the 60th anniversary of LBJ’s declaration of The War on Poverty. Spoiler alert: it hasn’t been going well.
…Unfortunately, according to a recent National Review article, big government strategies for poverty reduction have been unsuccessful at winning this war and have come at the cost of trillions of dollars. Today, poverty remains one of the most significant–and costly–problems in America.
Word on the Street Via National Review:
“Six decades later, the nation has made tremendous strides… Yet we have not won the war. Success has come almost entirely from government transfer payments to poor households, not from improvements in the foundational aspects of a flourishing life.”
“The foundation of a thriving life reflects our collective values, such as getting an education, working hard, and raising a family. However, many of our safety-net policies do not align with these objectives. Our safety-net programs disincentivize work and marriage, and many low-income children still cannot access quality education due to our government’s policies.”
“Unsurprisingly, this approach set the federal government on a disastrous fiscal path. Federal expenditures on means-tested programs have increased eightfold since the War on Poverty started, equating to an additional $800 billion per year in today’s dollars.”
“The vision outlined by President Johnson in his War on Poverty declaration 60 years ago today remains unfulfilled. Winning that war requires safety-net policies that align with the foundational principles essential for a flourishing life — education, employment, and marriage.”
The Big Picture:
The federal government operates nearly 100 interrelated welfare programs, spread across 14 government departments and agencies, and nine budget functions.
Federal welfare spending costs taxpayers more than $1 trillion each year. Over the next decade, the federal government is projected to spend more than $12 trillion on welfare programs. This sum of aggregate spending doesn’t include the billions of dollars in state government contributions to federal welfare programs.
Despite this massive government investment, as of 2022, 37.9 million people were living in poverty. Welfare enrollment in 2022 was even higher in many programs than at the height of the pandemic and government lockdowns in 2020. As enrollment has grown, welfare spending has skyrocketed. Outlays for welfare programs have grown significantly even in inflation adjusted terms.
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The Bottom Line:
President Johnson said before Congress that the “chief weapons” in the War on Poverty would be “better schools, and better health, and better homes, and better training, and better job opportunities to help more Americans.”
Since taking office, however, President Biden has enacted policies that paid people more to stay home than to return to their jobs and waived work requirements for able-bodied adults. Across the nation, reading and math scores are at their lowest levels in decades. These policy failures risk trapping a whole new generation of Americans in poverty and government dependence.
