In celebrating Children’s Week, Congress must prioritize the needs of children now

RESULTS celebrates Children’s Week, part of National Children’s Day. This year, Children’s Week spotlights some of the major challenges and issues facing children like hunger, homelessness, and poverty — issues RESULTS advocates have been working on to end and prevent for years. It also bears remembering that while we think of certain issues as specific to children, the majority of policies impact children in the end. With no pathways for self-advocacy, children remain one of the most disenfranchised groups in the US today, which makes our advocacy on their behalf indispensable to their welfare and human rights.

Congress’s treatment of children is a proxy for its work towards ending poverty – both are not high on many lawmakers’ priorities on the Hill. One glaring example of this disregard was when Congress let the 2021 expanded Child Tax Credit expire. The 2021 expanded CTC gave millions of families the tools to lift themselves out of poverty while it was in effect. To date, Congress has been unable to bypass political gridlock to reinstate this pivotal credit or any similarly impactful policy for children.

And this is where RESULTS advocates play an important role: making sure that lawmakers improve (or at least don’t undermine) the well-being of children and their families. RESULTS’ U.S. Poverty work aims to achieve greater equity and equality in the U.S. tax code. We continue to push Congress to expand the Child Tax Credit and make it available to more families across the country. Likewise, we continue to educate lawmakers on how the tax code can even the playing field for rent-burdened children and their families, many of whom still work even as or after they experience homelessness. Many members of Congress are surprised to learn the tax code has zero provisions for renters, and we could help prioritize renters through Renter Tax Credits. Tax credits, after all, provide our future generation with greater economic stability that leads to better health, education, and behavioral outcomes. Conversely, living in poverty can be traumatizing for children and their caregivers and is associated with adverse experiences and bad health outcomes.

Check out some of the events and activities happening during Children’s Week. Our work, of course, continues beyond Children’s Week – and we need to keep their well-being in mind while creating the political will in Congress to end and prevent poverty. Urge your member of Congress to take action to expand the CTC, to research and promote a Renter Tax Credit, and in general keep children and their families top of mind in policy discussions—authentically thinking through how their decisions and votes will affect children. There remains a lot of work to be done to ensure that the young generation has a brighter future ahead.