News Round Up: September 16, 2019
Here are some highlights from the past week’s news and upcoming events on family tax credit issues:
Top Story: The U.S. Census Bureau released new data on the state of poverty in the country, showing that the official poverty rate fell for the fourth consecutive year in 2018. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities highlighted the role of safety net programs in reducing poverty, noting that the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit alone lifted 7.9 million Americans out of poverty in 2018. The Center urged Congress to protect and improve these programs to continue to reduce the official poverty rate. (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)
- Paul Shinn, budget and tax senior policy analyst at the Oklahoma Policy Institute, urged state lawmakers to restore refundability to the state’s EITC in 2020 to provide more support to workers with the lowest incomes. (Enid News & Eagle)
- Vineeta Kapahi, a 2019 Kathleen Crotty Fellow at New Jersey Policy Perspective, encouraged state legislators to tackle poverty in New Jersey by expanding the state’s EITC to young workers without dependent children. (New Jersey Spotlight)
- Last week, poverty and tax advocates took to Twitter to highlight how the federal Working Families Tax Relief Act could benefit low-income working families. During the chat, advocates sent 1,089 tweets and reached 3.3 million users. Follow the conversation at #WorkingFamilies.