On Thursday, July 15, American working families get a huge tax cut. On that day, initial payments go out to 92% of American families with children: $250-$300 per month, per child, so that a family with three kids, aged two, four, and ten, will get $10.200 per year. (For that family it’s $850/month, on the 15th of every month, until the family files its 2021 tax-year taxes, at which time the family will receive the rest of the $10.200 in one lump sum.

Keep in mind that this is actual money paid to families, not some mere tax deduction.

It is real money. For real people. More than $10,000 per year for that family of five.

This is a huge tax cut for families who have not benefited from tax cuts that previously went mostly to millionaires, billionaires and big corporations. 

The expanded child tax credit affects even people who have not had to file taxes in the past, or have little or no income. (Links below).

This tax cut encourages a generational transformation, lifting almost half of poor American children out of poverty–childhood poverty that breeds adult poverty, educational failure, decreased productivity, disease, crime, incarceration, and premature death. 

Until this week, America has had a dismal, shameful record of childhood poverty–far worse than other wealthy nations. No more; this tax cut will change American lives for the better, for generations. What it is, is a legitimate shot at the American dream, for families that never really had hope of achieving it.

This tax cut/tax credit is part of the American Rescue Plan. President Biden signed it. And not a single Republican voted for it.

Details in links below.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/child-tax-credit/

https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/advance-child-tax-credit-payments-in-2021

https://www.benefits.gov/benefit/938

Alice Neel at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

A 1958 painting at the Alice Neel show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Titled, Sunset in East Harlem

https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2021/alice-neel