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State Fact Sheets: The Earned Income and Child Tax Credits

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for low- and moderate-income workers encourages and rewards work, offsets federal payroll and income taxes, and raises living standards. The Child Tax Credit (CTC) also helps low-income working families by offsetting part of the cost of child rearing. Next to Social Security, the EITC combined with the refundable portion of the CTC lift more people out of poverty than any other program.

These fact sheets provide state-by-state data on how the EITC and CTC reduce poverty, who benefits, how state EITCs can supplement the federal credit, and who benefits from two proposals to strengthen the credits.

Tax Credit Fact Sheets
NationalIllinoisNebraskaSouth Dakota
AlabamaIndianaNevadaTennessee
AlaskaIowaNew HampshireTexas
ArizonaKansasNew JerseyUtah
ArkansasKentuckyNew MexicoVermont
CaliforniaLouisianaNew YorkVirginia
ColoradoMaineNorth CarolinaWashington
ConnecticutMarylandNorth DakotaWest Virginia
DelawareMassachusettsOhioWisconsin
District of ColumbiaMichiganOklahomaWyoming
FloridaMinnesotaOregon 
GeorgiaMississippiPennsylvania 
HawaiiMissouriRhode Island 
IdahoMontanaSouth Carolina 

End Notes

Total number of workers not raising children benefiting from President’s EITC proposal from Treasury Department, http://1.usa.gov/1qMc1ej.  Number for the Brown-Neal proposal from CBPP estimates based on Treasury estimates and the Census Bureau’s March 2015 Current Population Survey (CPS).  Figures for young people, veteran and military service members, rural workers, and workers in selected occupations from CBPP estimates using a combination of Treasury estimates, March 2015 CPS, 2012-2014 American Community Survey (ACS), and 2013 IRS zip-code-level data compiled by the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program.  Numbers helped by the Ryan plan may be slightly smaller than listed for some groups because the Ryan proposal does not extend eligibility to workers age 65 and 66, as the Obama plan does.  Figures on number of recipients and dollars from IRS.  National antipoverty impact of EITC/CTC from CBPP analysis of March 2015 CPS and Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) public use files for 2014; state estimates from “Fighting Poverty at Tax Time through the EITC,” http://brook.gs/1392sJG.