Weekly News Round-up: August 17, 2015

Here are some highlights from the past week’s news on family tax credit issues. Remember – you also can track news coverage throughout the week by visiting our RSS feed, where you can filter news by a specific credit and/or state.

  • Cass Sunstein of Bloomberg called the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) a bipartisan “poverty-buster” and asked Congress to expand the credit to childless workers and individuals under 25 as well as increase benefits overall (Bloomberg View).
  • A new report found that growing up in poverty can affect a child’s brain structure with negative consequences on academic performance, standardized test scores and long-term employment prospects. To minimize these effects, scientists encouraged policymakers to support policies like the EITC (Bloomberg View, TCWF)
  • The Center for American Progress released a report on the Child Tax Credit’s (CTC) important role in increasing opportunity for children in low-income families and proposed changes that would strengthen the credit (CAP).
  • The Georgia Budget and Policy Institute encouraged state lawmakers to create an EITC during the next legislative session (GBPI).
  • David Gutman called on Congress to renew expiring provisions of the EITC and CTC so 160,000 West Virginia families can continue collecting the credits (Charleston Gazette Mail).
  • Lehigh University Professor Sothy Eng called on policymakers to eliminate the EITC’s marriage penalty arguing it deters low-income couples from marriage and lowers their chances of long-term economic security (Huffington Post).