Peer-reviewed article
The Effects of the 2021 Child Tax Credit on Racial and Ethnic Inequalities in Well-Being
Bradley L. Hardy, Charles Hokayem ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examines how the temporary expansion of the US Child Tax Credit in 2021 affected child and family well-being across different racial and ethnic groups. The evidence shows the credit helped reduce family poverty, decrease food hardship, and increase spending on children. The research finds that the tax credit expansion was associated with reduced income inequality between Black and white families and between Hispanic and white families, particularly among lower-income households.
Key points
- The 2021 CTC expansion helped reduce family poverty across racial and ethnic groups
- Food hardship decreased among families who received the tax credit
- Families increased financial expenditures on children as a result of the credit
- The expansion was associated with lower income inequality at the 10th and 25th percentiles of the income distribution
- Benefits were observed across different racial and ethnic populations, though disparities remained
Limitations
The document is a review of existing research and does not provide detailed information about the mechanisms through which benefits were distributed or whether the expansion addressed structural barriers to child well-being. It does not examine longer-term impacts or outcomes beyond income and food security.
Abstract
Evidence from the temporary expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) in 2021 suggests it helped to reduce family poverty, lessen food hardship, and increase families’ financial expenditures on children across race and ethnicity. We review recent evidence on the impacts of the CTC on differences in well-being across race and ethnicity, including differences in access to the tax credit, how families used the tax credit, and the food insecurity and mental health circumstances of those families. We supplement our review of extant research with an analysis of racial income inequality using nationally representative data from the Current Population Survey: we find that the 2021 CTC expansion is associated with lowered Black–white and Hispanic–white income inequality in the bottom half of the income distribution, particularly at the 10th and 25th percentiles.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Temporary expansion of the Child Tax Credit in 2021, providing increased cash payments to families with children
- Population
- Families with children across the United States, stratified by race and ethnicity
Key finding
The 2021 CTC expansion reduced family poverty across racial and ethnic groups
Hardy et al. · OpenAlex · 1 Nov 2023