Inflation schminflation.
Amid all the bad news about prices going up—to say nothing of supply chain woes, a still-raging delta variant, and climate change havoc—there’s a ray of economic light.
The child poverty rate in the United States is down, thanks to the expanded child tax credit, the Huffington Post reports. That extra cash the federal government sent to families translated into 6 million kids staying above the poverty line in June, a 40% decline that was the biggest year-to-year change between 1967 and 2020. Since July, the monthly payments have helped 3 to 4 million children live above the poverty line.
Democrats hope to keep the payments going into 2022 as part of the Biden Administration’s Build Back Better Act, which could go to a vote this week.
The first stimulus checks came via the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, a.k.a the CARES Act, in March 2020. At the start of the pandemic, Americans also benefitted from boosted unemployment benefits.
The bit of good news is all the more positive, as inflation continues to hit American shoppers’ wallets hard. Last month, consumer prices rose 6.2%, the biggest jump in more than three decades.
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