Raising Children In LA Is Expensive. Here’s How A Bigger Child Tax Credit Would Help

A bipartisan Congressional bill that would expand the child tax credit could benefit an estimated 2 million children in California, particularly in low-income families with multiple kids.

The measure passed the House last month, and is awaiting its fate in the Senate. And while it’s not as generous as the pandemic-era expansion, advocates say it could bring much-needed relief to families.

“Our North Star is the full expansion again, but this will for sure have a tremendous impact for families, particularly right now as we're heading into tax season,” said Shimica Gaskins, president and CEO of Grace/End Child Poverty CA.

In 2021, the credit temporarily expanded to $3,000 for children from 6 to 17 and $3,600 for children under 6, and was available on a monthly basis. It cut child poverty substantially. It was also fully refundable, meaning families could get back that money even if they didn’t owe that much in taxes.

The child tax credit expansion is part of a larger bill, the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act. A representative for Sen. Ron Wyden, who chairs the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, said the goal is to get it passed soon after the Senate reconvenes next week.

What’s the current policy?

After the sunset of the pandemic expansion, the tax credit reverted back to $2,000 per child and is not fully refundable for every family. The new bill increases the amount some families with multiple children can receive and reinstates full refundability by 2025.

For families who would benefit, it would mean an average of an additional $700 this year, according to estimates from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, but significantly more for some lower-income families.

The expansion would help parents like Griselda Calito, a mother of four children who lives in West Hollywood. Back in 2021, she remembers the extra payments were like a lifeline.

“It helped me a lot especially because COVID was happening — working was a little bit harder,” she said. “I'm a single mother, so I had to juggle taking care of the kids and working.”

Calito worked then as a medical assistant at an OB-GYN clinic, and with the pandemic upending the healthcare system, she worked fewer hours. With four children under 10, she said the credit gave her about $900 a month.

“I was able to feed them. I was able to have a roof over their heads. If they needed any clothes, toys, supplies, that was an extra income that helped me a lot,” she said. She also knew the extra payments were expiring at the end of 2021, so she tried to save as much as she could.

That helped as she stopped working as a medical assistant in order to get an associate’s degree in administration of justice at West Los Angeles College. Last year, when she could squeeze in the time, she would drive for Uber.

Under the new expansion proposal, Calito could get $5,700 in tax credits a year — about $350 more a month than under the current law. (The Washington Post built a handy credit calculator that we used for some tax calculation on our end, too.)

“Rent and the food and everything is so expensive, so that extra income would help a lot,” she said. Calito tries to shop for groceries twice a month, after sitting down and making a list of all the expenses she’ll have to pay for the upcoming weeks.

And with four growing children, especially her two boys, she says her groceries don’t go as far as they used to. “The way I'm calculating it, it's usually not enough because they're so hungry and obviously I'm going to feed them, so it's hard.”

Aside from rent and food, gas is also one of her highest expenses. Calito drives a minivan, a necessity for a family with four kids — a 2005 Toyota Sienna. Between their schools and extracurricular activities, she’s on the road often.

And aside from the essentials, she said extra income would help take her children out to places around the city. “As my kids are getting older, they want to do activities,” like going to the movies or the zoo.

“I do spend a lot of time with my kids and I do like to do adventures with them,” she said. “So I try to at least accommodate having one or two outings with them. But if I can't afford it, then I’ll tell them ‘unfortunately I can’t this month, but hopefully next month, I'll take you guys.”

Security for unexpected costs

The expanded tax credit also represents a safety net, insurance against losing a job or extra support for families that add a child.

Irene Sanchez, a treatment coordinator at a dental office and a mother of two kids, qualified for the pandemic expansion. She makes enough together with her husband that the new proposal wouldn’t benefit them this year. But if the expansion was as generous as it was during COVID, she would arrange more outings with her kids.

“Sometimes even just creating healthy memories, like creating activities for them. It's an expense,” she said. “Having kids in California, it's not so easy all the time if you're not making a lot of money.

The extra money would help with medical expenses, too, she said.

“Having two kids and with my son starting preschool, one kid gets sick and he's sick at most like every other week,” Sanchez said.

With her work schedule, Sanchez couldn’t go see her kids’ primary doctor during the day when they were sick, so she took them into urgent care, which costs about $50 a visit per kid. In December and January alone, Sanchez said her kids went around eight times for various colds and ear infections. That’s taken a toll on her family’s budget; if the tax credit increased to pandemic levels, it could mean a couple hundred dollars more a month.

Ngoyzi Nwadiashi, a Hawthorne mother, had just immigrated to the U.S. during the start of the pandemic. When the expanded child tax credits were available each month, she said it was a huge relief, especially as she was looking for work.

“It took a lot of stress and anxiety off me,” Nwadiashi said, who’s now a clinical care coordinator and in the process of taking her medical license exams. She makes about $36,000 a year. She would like to see the expansion match what families saw during the pandemic. Fifty dollars, for example, would mean a week’s worth of groceries for her five-year old daughter.

“Any dollar that's added to my money is going to relieve me a whole lot — extra $60, extra $50, extra $10,” she said. "It goes a long way.”