Hardship remains high across the board although some measures halted their upward trend in early January, Census data released today show. Millions of people report that their household didn’t get enough to eat, isn’t caught up on rent, or struggled to cover usual expenses. While the relief package enacted in December amidst surging hardship and a stalling recovery will provide important help...

This week at CBPP, we focused on the federal budget and taxes, family income support, state budgets and taxes, food assistance, health, poverty and inequality, and the economy.

President Biden’s $1.9 trillion emergency relief plan includes a Child Tax Credit expansion that would lift 9.9 million children above or closer to the poverty line, including 2.3 million Black children, 4.1 million Latino children, and 441,000 Asian American children. It also would lift 1.1 million...

The emergency relief plan that President-elect Biden announced yesterday would expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for over 17 million adults not raising children at home who work hard at important, but low-paid, jobs. The EITC is a highly successful wage subsidy that’s earned bipartisan support over the years, but the current credit largely excludes adults who aren’t raising children...