Advocates rally behind consolidated family tax credit

Source: MSN

ALBANY —  New York’s progressive Democrats say consolidating — and expanding — the state’s existing tax credits and exemptions would be the most effective way of putting money in the pockets of the working and middle classes. 

Lawmakers, advocates and members of the Working Families Party converged at the state Capitol on Monday, calling for Gov. Kathy Hochul to include the "working families tax credit" in the upcoming state budget. The proposed initiative would combine several other tax breaks, including the Empire State Child Credit, the state earned income credit and the state’s dependent exemption. It would also raise the amount most families are eligible to receive. 

Last month, Hochul proposed an overhaul of the Empire State Child Credit, a change that would roughly triple the maximum of $330 per child and double the average credit given out to families from $472 to $943. Hochul’s announcement marked a victory for child poverty advocates, who have long lobbied for expanded tax credits as a means of combating the state’s high child poverty rates. 

But attendees at Monday’s rally think Hochul could take more dramatic steps toward halving child poverty in New York by 2032.

“Three of the top 10 cities in the United States of America for child poverty are right here in New York state. That is criminal,” said Brooklyn state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, a sponsor of working families credit bill. “In a state as rich as New York, in a state as generous and well-resourced as New York, in a state with a proposed budget of $256 billion, the fact that we have kids go to sleep hungry every night is a crime.”

Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo are all plagued by nationally high rates of child poverty. A state comptroller's report issued in May found that between 40 to 46 percent of children in the three cities were experiencing poverty in 2022. Across the state, the report found that nearly one in five children live in poverty. An expanded tax credit was chief among the recommendations put forth in December by the Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council, a task force convened by Hochul to help realize her 2032 mandate.

Gounardes’ credit would raise the maximum tax credit to $1,600 per child, grant a minimum credit of $100 per child and remove the current cap of three eligible children per family. It would also be adjusted for inflation and distributed quarterly, instead of in an annual lump sum. Gounardes said enacting the new tax credit would cut child poverty in the state by nearly 16%, compared to about 8% under the expansion Hochul proposed in January.  

Queens Assemblywoman Jessica González-Rojas, a supporter of the bill, said she is hopeful that it would also help combat the state’s growing population loss. 

“It’s not the millionaires and billionaires who are leaving,” González-Rojas said. “It’s the working-class families that can no longer afford to live in this state. The working families tax credit will be a game changer.”