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Congresswoman Susie Lee delivered $143 million in child tax credit payments for Nevada families last month alone – providing a lifeline to working families as they recover from this historic crisis.
As the second round of checks begin to hit parents’ bank accounts, a reminder that Democrats like Congresswoman Lee fought to ensure middle-class families received this critical tax cut.
Read more below.
Nevada Current: Nevada families received $143 million in child tax credit money last month
More than 560,000 children in Nevada benefited from expanded child tax credit payments in July, according to data released by the U.S. Treasury and Internal Revenue Service.
Almost $15 billion in advance child tax credit money was distributed nationwide last month. In Nevada, $143.3 million was distributed to qualified families, representing 330,000 families and 560,000 eligible children.
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Experts have said the expanded child tax credit has the potential to cut child poverty in half.
A national survey released by the family advocacy nonprofit ParentsTogether Action in advance of the second round of payments found that 79% of parents immediately spent the money they received in July. The three most common things the money was used on: food (48%), utilities (45%) and rent (29%).
More than half (56%) of parents surveyed said the first round of checks reduced their financial anxiety, and 65% said the money will make “a huge difference.” Thirty percent of parents indicated the money “will be helpful but…”
Only 5% of parents said the money wouldn’t make much of a difference.
For Veronica McCullum-Bergeron, a mother of five kids ranging from age 3 to 12, that first monthly payment meant “just getting caught up on bills and trying to maintain stability for my family.”
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Democrats are pushing to make the expanded child tax credit a permanent part of the nation’s tax structure. U.S. Rep. Susie Lee, who previously ran a nonprofit that helps at-risk students, held a press conference Tuesday at The Learning Experience to promote the expected impact of the expanded child tax credit, which she said she prefers to call “a tax cut.”
“So many of the barriers that families faced were obviously economic,” said Lee, referencing her work at Communities in Schools. “When kids are hungry, when they’re worried about having a roof over their head, when parents are stressed about making ends meet, when they’re working four jobs to pay their rent… Things get left behind, and unfortunately many of our children fall behind.”
She continued, “The smartest investment we can always make is an investment in children.”
Making the expanded child tax credit permanent is being considered as part of the upcoming reconciliation bill. Lee acknowledged that negotiations will result in changes to the reconciliation bill but called making the child tax credit permanent “a big priority for many people.”
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