WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) joined Senators Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Representatives Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Suzan DelBene (D-WA) — members of a group often referred to as the ‘CTC Six’ —to hold a press conference to highlight the skyrocketing child poverty rate and urge Congress to restore the expanded, enhanced Child Tax Credit (CTC). Yesterday, the U.S. Census Bureau released its annual Supplemental Poverty Measure revealing that the child poverty rate rose from 5.2 percent to 12.4 percent between 2021 and 2022, an almost 140 percent increase in a single year. Video of Senator Booker’s remarks can be found below.
[CLICK HERE FOR SENATOR BOOKER’S REMARKS]
In November 2022, the Senate Joint Economic Committee released a report highlighting that the expanded CTC in the American Rescue Plan Act lifted 5.3 million people, including 2.9 million children, out of poverty last year. Late last year, Senator Booker and the CTC Six called on Congress to not pass tax breaks for corporations without passing an expanded CTC. In early June, Representatives DeLauro, DelBene, and Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) reintroduced the American Family Act to restore the expanded and improved monthly Child Tax Credit with 207 cosponsors. Later that month, Senators Booker, Bennet, and Brown introduced their Working Families Tax Relief Act to restore the expanded Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit.