What Could 2024 Child Poverty Rates Have Looked Like Had an Expanded Child Tax Credit Still Been in Place?

What could 2024 child poverty rates have looked like had an expanded Child Tax Credit still been in place?

In 2021, child poverty fell to a historic low of 5.2% due in part to the substantial, but temporary, federal Child Tax Credit expansion under the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Since the expiration of ARPA's Child Tax Credit expansion in 2022, the Child Tax Credit—which has since reflected the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) credit structure—has had a much more modest effect on child poverty. At the same time, child poverty has more than doubled since 2021, with the latest Census Bureau data showing that 13.3% of children lived in poverty in 2024. Calls for a permanent Child Tax Credit expansion similar to 2021 have persisted amidst these continuing child poverty increases. Earlier this year, the 2025 budget reconciliation law—H.R.1, also known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA)—made Child Tax Credit changes much more modest than the ARPA expansion. OBBBA increases the maximum Child Tax Credit to $2,200 per child, but leaves untouched the rest of the credit’s central elements that affect eligibility for children in low- and moderate-income families. A proposed Child Tax Credit expansion, the 2025 American Family Act (AFA, H.R.2763), would make ARPA-like expansions permanent and include additional benefits for newborns. These two policy examples raise the question: what could child poverty rates in 2024 have been if an expanded Child Tax Credit had been in place? In this brief, we address this question by modeling both the 2025 OBBBA Child Tax Credit and the 2025 AFA in the latest available annual data for 2024. 

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Key Findings

  • The child poverty rate was 13.3% in 2024, remaining significantly higher than the 2021 historic low of 5.2%. Approximately 5.9 million more children were living below the poverty line in 2024 than in 2021.
     
  • In 2024, the Child Tax Credit reduced the child poverty rate from 16.6% to 13.3% (or by 19.6%) – keeping close to 2.4 million children above the poverty line.
     
  • Had it been in place in 2024, the OBBBA Child Tax Credit would have had roughly the same impact, also resulting in a child poverty rate of approximately 13.3%, keeping just over 2.4 million children above the poverty line. This does not account for OBBBA’s new Child Tax Credit restriction on children with immigrant parents or OBBBA’s forthcoming cuts to health care and food assistance likely to impact children in poverty.
     
  • Had it been in place in 2024, the AFA Child Tax Credit could have had a more substantial effect on child poverty, reducing the child poverty rate from 13.3% to 8.8% (or by 33.6%) and moving an additional 3.3 million children above the poverty line. 
     
  • Policy design matters: on its own the Child Tax Credit lowered the 2024 rate by 19.6%, while the AFA Child Tax Credit could have cut it nearly in half (or by 46.7%).
     
  • The AFA Child Tax Credit’s effect on poverty remains substantial under an array of potential employment responses.

Suggested Citation:

Yera, Christopher, Sophie Collyer, Megan Curran, and David Harris. 2025. What could 2024 child poverty rates have looked like had an expanded Child Tax Credit been in place? An analysis of the American Family Act and “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” Child Tax Credits. Poverty and Social Policy Brief, vol. 9, no.17. New York: Center on Poverty and Social Policy, Columbia University. 

Published on September 09, 2025