Tax credits/guaranteed income alleviate hunger - Children need them, mothers have earned them!

Session Summary: Regular, frequent and unconditional cash transfers in the form of the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC), Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Guaranteed Income (GI) have been shown to reduce poverty and improve food security. The pandemic-era CTC lifted nearly half of children, and the expanded EITC lifted another 6 million children, out of poverty. $75 out of every CTC $100 was spent on food. In 2024, reports from 15 pilots sponsored by Mayors for a Guaranteed Income found that guaranteed income led to better food security.

The key ingredients: no work requirements, monthly payments, increased amount, available to those with ITINs.

But these regular unconditional cash transfers are often characterized as charities, not as payment for caregiving work that is essential to society, and accused of rewarding laziness or feeding drug addiction, and some policy makers try to impose work requirements on recipients as a condition for getting them. The result is that single mothers and grandmothers working the hardest and most in need, particularly those of color, aren’t getting them, putting women and children at risk of poverty, hunger, domestic violence, criminalization, child welfare interaction, and more.

We will hear from three mothers and grandmothers, not only about the impact of the payments on them and their families, but of their work raising children and caring for those who are ill or have disabilities, and of their advocacy for these payments in their communities and to policy makers.