State Fact Sheets: How Are Families Using the Child Tax Credit?

The Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion has long endorsed an increase in the child tax cred­it (CTC) — and oth­er poli­cies — to improve the lives of kids and fam­i­lies. Enact­ed in March 2021, the fed­er­al Amer­i­can Res­cue Plan sig­nif­i­cant­ly strength­ened the child tax cred­it to include, for the first time, reg­u­lar month­ly pay­ments to par­ents. This proac­tive sup­port will reach 88% of chil­dren and youth nation­wide, a life­line for par­ents try­ing to pay rent, buy food and clothes, save for their chil­dren’s edu­ca­tion and meet oth­er crit­i­cal needs.

To demon­strate the imme­di­ate impact of the child tax pay­ments, the Casey Foun­da­tion recent­ly part­nered with the Social Pol­i­cy Insti­tute at Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty to devel­op easy-to-read fact sheets that include data from the U.S. Cen­sus Bureau’s House­hold Pulse Sur­vey. These fact sheets show how fam­i­lies mak­ing less than $150,000 a year are using the cred­it and what kind of a dif­fer­ence it is mak­ing in their lives.

The data pre­sent­ed on the fact sheets were col­lect­ed between July 21, 2021, and August 16, 2021, cov­er­ing the peri­od in which the first two child tax cred­it pay­ments were deposit­ed in fam­i­lies’ bank account. 

In addi­tion to the fact sheets, the Social Pol­i­cy Insti­tute released a nation­al report on how fam­i­lies intend­ed to use the child tax cred­it pay­ments based on sur­veys from July 8–13, 2021.

Nation­al and State Data on Child Tax Cred­it Payments

These fact sheets include key data on recip­i­ents, pay­ment usage and hard­ship or food secu­ri­ty reduc­tion. Addi­tion­al state fact sheets are avail­able on the Social Pol­i­cy Insti­tute’s website.

• Unit­ed States
• Ari­zona
• Col­orado
• Flori­da
• Geor­gia
• Illi­nois
• Iowa
• Kansas
• Maine
• Michi­gan
• Min­neso­ta
• Mon­tana
• Neva­da
• New Hamp­shire
• New Jer­sey
• New York
• Penn­syl­va­nia
• Ten­nessee
• Texas
• Vir­ginia
• West Vir­ginia

Find more data about chil­dren and fam­i­lies from the House­hold Pulse Sur­vey on the KIDS COUNT Data Center.

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