Early Childhood
The HEROES Act, introduced yesterday in the House, includes critical supports to stabilize families and communities -- including expansions in access to paid sick and family leave, getting cash to families, additional nutrition benefits, and investments in housing assistance -- yet the legislation falls woefully short on support for child care.
Child Health
We applaud the many important provisions laid out in the HEROES Act and will continue urging both chambers of Congress to include these and other steps to ensure our most vulnerable children and families can weather this crisis.
Child Poverty
Families should not have to worry where their next meal will come from or face harsh requirements that were impossible to meet even before this pandemic. The Pandemic TANF Assistance Act would provide vital assistance to families who need it most--an essential step toward comprehensive action to help children and families confronting severe economic hardship and poverty.
Child Health
As the coronavirus pandemic upends daily life all across the country, families must continue to follow public health recommendations by staying at home and limiting contact with others whenever possible. But an unintended negative consequence of the pandemic is the news that up to 80 percent of American children are not visiting their pediatricians’ offices right now and are missing out on routine well-child visits that include important developmental screenings and vaccinations.
Child Poverty
Nearly 12 million children, including 7.5 million Black and Latino children, are growing up in poverty in the United States - one of the highest poverty rates out of any developed country in the world. And the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to push millions more children into poverty with rates potentially climbing to the highest in 50 years.By expanding and increasing the CTC and creating a new tax credit for young children, Congress can proactively prevent millions of children from sliding into poverty during the pandemic and beyond.
Child Poverty
The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the consequences of allowing so many children and families in America to live in poverty. Expanding and increasing the Child Tax Credit and creating a new Young Child Tax Credit will help reduce rapidly rising child poverty, provide meaningful assistance for working families, and help stabilize the economy during and beyond this pandemic.
Early Childhood
Congress take immediate and comprehensive action to ensure equal educational opportunity during the COVID-19 public health crisis and beyond. Long term closures of early childhood settings, K12 schools, and college campuses, necessary to protect the safety and health of communities, have significantly exacerbated longstanding inequities in our educational system. Leadership and action from Congress can, and must, minimize the harm to marginalized students as long as COVID-19 continues to threaten the public health.
Child Poverty
Children and families struggling to make ends meet need more than just a one-time payment. Families need a larger and recurring monthly payment of $2,000 a month for every adult and child for the duration of the economic downturn. Families with children are disproportionately feeling the effects of this crisis. We all benefit when children and their families are fully supported.
Child Poverty
More than 30 million people have lost their jobs since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and millions of children could fall into poverty if Congress fails to meet this unprecedented challenge. Without robust federal support, one study estimates that child poverty could balloon from an already shameful 13.6 percent to nearly 21 percent, with Black and Latino children bearing a disproportionate risk of falling into or deeper into poverty.