The impoverished population of New York did get a lifeline when Congress boosted food stamp aid during the pandemic to assist the families that were trying to make do amidst the lockdowns and work stoppages.
But unfortunately, that cash is gone now. The payments from the federal government were snuffed out a long time back, after which families and senior citizens enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program- and now they are facing a hunger cliff as they could be receiving significantly lower payouts in the following months.
But the state legislators of New York could easily offer a helping hand to the citizens if they expanded the Child Tax Credit of the state. Research has shown that when the citizens received the expanded CTC previously, more than 90% of the citizens stated that the additional money was used for necessities.
New York State Could Expand The Child Tax Credit
As it turns out, there are quite a few bills already- that have made the consideration to expand the Child Tax Credit and widen the number of people it reaches. One of those bills could easily expand the Empire State Child Credit to a permanent bill that will offer $1,000 per child credit for all children who are under the age of 4 and $500 to children who are below the ages of 4 and 17. This bill might also expand its reach to the poorest sections of society by eliminating the notion that families would need to have a certain income before they qualified for this credit.
The federal tax code, which already provided a Child Tax Credit payment of $2,000 per child, does leave out almost a third of all the children in the state whose families’ incomes are quite low to receive the payment.
