The Child Tax Credit over Time by Family Type: Benefit Eligibility and Poverty

Margaret Brehm and Olga Malkova

No 16129, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We examine disparities in Child Tax Credit (CTC) eligibility and anti-poverty effects since 1998 by family type. Initially, single mothers were least likely to be eligible and were underrepresented among those lifted from poverty by the CTC, because the credit was virtually nonrefundable. By 2017, disparities by family type mostly disappear, as eligibility and anti-poverty effectiveness of the CTC among single mothers increases dramatically, because of reforms increasing CTC refundability. When the credit doubles in 2018, disparities revert toward initial levels, as eligibility and the anti-poverty effectiveness of single mothers rises least, because of a phaseout threshold expansion and partial refundability.

Keywords: Child Tax Credit; poverty; gender; tax policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H24 H71 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 53 pages
Date: 2023-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lma and nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published in: National Tax Journal, 2023, 76 (3), 707 - 741

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp16129.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Child Tax Credit over Time by Family Type: Benefit Eligibility and Poverty (2023)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16129

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().