- President-elect Joe Biden is expected to expand child benefits in a financial aid package, reported The Washington Post.
- Last year Biden unveiled a plan to expand the child tax credit.
- Democrats supported expanding child benefits to combat high child poverty rates in the United States.
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President-elect Joe Biden is expected to include greater benefits for children in a financial aid package to be launched on Thursday, sources told The Washington Post.
The report said Biden would likely push for a measure similar to his campaign proposal to provide $ 300 a month for families with a child under 6 and $ 250 a month for families with children between 6 and 17.
Biden proposed last year to expand and increase the child tax credit to $ 3,000 per child for children aged 6 to 17 and to $ 3,600 for children under 6 years of age.
Biden’s website said the expansion “would provide thousands of dollars in tax breaks for middle-class families” and “would help hard-working working families to avoid poverty and achieve greater economic security”.
Marc Goldwein, head of policy for the Responsible Federal Budget Committee, said on Twitter on Thursday that a family of five could receive $ 19,000 with Biden’s expanded child tax credit.
—Mark TWO MILLION STRIPS PER DAY Goldwein (@MarcGoldwein) January 14, 2021
Biden launched this proposal in September. Experts previously told Insider that while the benefits were substantial for the working class, there was work to be done to ensure that deserving families were not left out.
The financial aid package is expected to be priced at around $ 1 trillion with child benefits, the Post reported.
Many Democratic lawmakers have supported expanding child tax benefits to combat high rates of child poverty in the United States.
House Democrats approved an expansion of the child tax credit last year. And Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado said in 2019 that he could not think of “nothing more at war with who we are as Americans than allowing children to grow up in poverty.”