Expanded Child Tax Credit Research Summary
By Anika Dandekar
The American Rescue Plan expanded the Child Tax Credit (CTC) for one year, allowing qualifying families to offset $3,000 per child up to age 17 and $3,600 per child under age 6. The policy, while in place, lifted nearly 4 million children out of poverty.
From July 23, 2021, to February 14, 2022, a time period encompassing the expanded program and extending six weeks beyond its expiration, Fighting Chance for Families conducted 32 surveys regarding the expanded Child Tax Credit, totaling 42,862 interviews of likely voters and over 7,000 CTC recipients nationally. We asked how much they had heard about the CTC, which politicians they attributed the checks to, whether they supported it, whether they believed it should be made permanent, and their views of the economy more broadly.
The survey results demonstrated that recipients strongly supported the CTC — and rewarded Democrats with increased support while the checks were going out — but that any advantages disappeared once the program was allowed to expire.
Key Findings:
The CTC enjoyed broad support generally and overwhelming support among parents of children under 18.
CTC recipients were more likely to approve of President Biden and the Democratic Party.
On average, people trusted Democrats over Republicans on “supporting parents with children” by a 9-point margin, but that advantage disappeared when they learned that Democrats let the CTC expire.
CTC recipients consistently rated economic conditions as “excellent” or “good” at significantly higher rates than non-recipients while CTC checks were being distributed, but their views of the economy converged to those of non–recipients once the expanded CTC ended.