Weekly News Round-up: December 21, 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 website, where you can filter news by a specific credit and/or state.

  • Congress approved and the president signed into law a tax package that makes permanent the expiring Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and CTC (Child Tax Credit) provisions (Politico, The Hill, New York Times, AEI).
  • With victory in the fight to make those EITC and CTC provisions permanent, Demos explored other changes that would further boost the EITC’s effectiveness at reducing poverty (Demos).
  • Vox’s Dylan Matthews examined how reducing error rates for programs like the EITC and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) could lower the poverty rate (Vox).
  • Meghan Hatch, an assistant professor of Urban Policy and City Management at Cleveland State University, wrote on the importance of tax credits like the EITC and CTC for helping working families make ends meet (The Hill).
  • Steve Holt of HoltSolutions revisited his 2008 paper on periodic payments of the EITC, weighing the benefits and risks of such a programmatic change in our current economic climate (Brookings Institution).