We ran out of stimulus money the month we got it, Mitch. Send more. ...Like $1,400 is less than one month of childcare for one kid. Talk about blaming a single drop of rain for the flood.
Assuming that someone qualified for all 3 checks, they totaled $3,200[0] before accounting for dependents. You're telling me that millions of households have managed to live on ~$150 per month for two years? I'm not buying it.
[0] https://www.pandemicoversight.gov/data-interactive-tools/dat...
Say you're married and have 3 kids under 6 and 1 kid over 6. With the fully refundable child tax credit, in 2021 your household would automatically receive 1400 x 2 + 3600 x 3 + 3000 = $16,600. That's more then 10% of Americans make a year at their jobs. That's not including any other benefits such as unemployment and food stamps, which you'd certainly be eligible for if you didn't have a job in 2021.
First of all, you picked an arbitrary four kids to pad out your numbers, but... if each kid costs $1,500 plus a month for childcare, it'd cost $6,000 a month, or $72,000 just for childcare. I get a few thousand of that back as a tax writeoff, but... it's not going to break even. So thanks for the $16,600... by your math I'm still over $50,000 in the hole. I make plenty more than $50k a year, but there's also, you know, rent... food... did you know the cost of natural gas has tripled this year? In the winter it's $400 a month to stave off hypothermia.
Second, the child tax credit is... not free money. It's a credit on my taxes, and it's also not new. The only thing that really changed with the child tax credit is that the government allows you to collect it monthly instead of all at once during tax season. Which really just changes the formula between getting a big refund and getting tiny chunks of refund throughout the year. And bear in mind, you have to be bringing in that much taxable income in the first place to actually get anything back.
I'm guessing you don't have kids, or you'd have some idea how the math works out on these. But having kids is... not affordable... in the current economy, even if you're making a solid non-Silicon Valley tech salary. The idea that anyone would pay $70 to fill their gas tank, to spend nearly $100 a day on childcare, to do some restaurant job paying $10 an hour is absolutely laughable.
> And bear in mind, you have to be bringing in that much taxable income in the first place to actually get anything back.
The 2021 child tax credit was fully refundable. You get it whether you owe taxes or not.
In Nebraska, maybe. Not here.
> we're talking about a family who's unemployed
No, I definitely wasn't, and if you were, almost nothing you're speaking of would apply anyways.
> You get it whether you owe taxes or not.
There's a difference between "not owing taxes" and "not having taxable income".
> There's a difference between "not owing taxes" and "not having taxable income".
You get it whether or not you have taxable income.