Not sure if you're aware but the US recently started sending checks to families every month.
The more obvious answer is that America had quite the recovery from the great recession including a pre-pandemic unemployment rate approaching 0%.
From what I can tell, it increased by 80%[0], from $2,000 to $3,600. (It varies for different household structures/incomes, but in general the poorest get the most.)
> If the claim is that the timing of payments is reducing poverty.. that's quite the claim.
As someone who's got some close friends who are poor, yes, monthly payments can make a big difference.
But really, the extra $1,200 isn't insignificant. It's 5% of the 25%ile income, and 14% for the 10%ile[1]. $1,200 a year is literally over 50% some of my friends' total food budgets. (I'm sure someone will jump in to explain how they could never eat for that little, but I can assure you that many Americans do.)
[0] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/taxes/will-i-receive-the-chil...
I have nothing against the child tax credit. I think it's great. But I am hard pressed to believe 1600 dollars has eliminated poverty. If it did... Great that's a really cheap way to do it!
If your monthly bills are $100 below what you make, then it makes sense that an extra $133 will shift you from "guess I'll skip dinner" to "I don't have to skip dinner", at least until costs change or some financial shock like a car repair comes up. Still others hopefully went from just being able to cover the monthly bills to that + saving for unexpected expenses.
Some people are fine with none, some people need much more, but across a large set of people, some percentage of people will go from below the bar we've defined to above, or above more often than before.
We definitely haven't come close to fully eliminated poverty, but if measurably fewer children are undernourished (or whatever metric we use) that's pretty nifty.