The Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit are two of the strongest tools in the tax code for working families. But under current law, millions of the families who need them most never get the full benefit.

An estimated 19 million children under 17 get less than the full $2,200 Child Tax Credit because their families earn too little. More than half of Black children are left out of the full credit. So are more than 1 in 3 Latino children and more than 1 in 3 Native and Alaska Native children. The EITC still gives workers without qualifying children a sliver of a credit but locks out most workers under 25 and over 65.

The 2025 Trump-GOP tax law raised the maximum CTC from $2,000 to $2,200 for families already collecting the full amount. The kids shut out before that law passed are still shut out. Meanwhile, the top 1% are in line for $1 trillion in tax cuts from that same law.

Congress has a proven alternative. In 2021, a larger, fully refundable, monthly Child Tax Credit cut child poverty to 5.2% and lifted 2.9 million children out of poverty. Congress let that policy expire.

The American Family Act would make a larger, monthly, fully refundable Child Tax Credit permanent: $6,360 for newborns, $4,320 for children ages 1 through 6, and $3,600 for children ages 6 through 17. A bipartisan bill from Sens. Hassan, Young, and Cortez Masto would start CTC refundability at the first dollar of earned income. The EITC can be expanded so workers without qualifying children, and younger and older workers, can actually get it.

Tell Congress to pass the American Family Act, make an expanded Child Tax Credit permanent, and expand the EITC so both credits reach working families.