What children in poverty could lose from the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ : NPR

Low-income children and families would be among the groups hit hardest by Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

While the bill would be a boon to wealthy Americans, it would scale back resources for the nation’s poorest households, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) warned in a recent letter to lawmakers.

In an effort to pay for an extension of the 2017 Trump tax cuts, Republicans in both the House and Senate want to change or reduce key social safety net programs that provide healthcare, food benefits and financial assistance for millions of children.

Here’s what to know.

Healthcare for children

More than 37 million children are enrolled in either Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), a federal program that provides affordable health insurance to pregnant mothers and children who live just above Medicaid’s poverty threshold.

Combined, Medicaid and CHIP protect nearly half of all children in the United States, beginning with important prenatal care, covering over 40% of U.S. births as well as nearly half of all rural births, and continuing to insure millions of vulnerable children into young adulthood.

Congressional Republicans want to continue to allow states to impose waiting periods before families can enroll in CHIP and to lock them out of the program if they fail to keep up with premiums.

They also propose changing Medicaid to include a first-ever national work requirement. As the House bill is written, it would exempt parents, “but what we’ve seen from past experience with work requirements is that exemptions are not always effective,” says Allison Orris, director of Medicaid policy at the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Senate Republicans propose going even further, with a part-time work requirement including parents of children over 14.

“If [parents’] earnings go up because they’re complying, that actually could be good for the kids,” says Kevin Corinth, who studies poverty and safety net programs at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

Approximately 1 in 4 children across the country are currently missing out on the full child tax credit, while affluent households earning up to $200,000 for individuals or $400,000 for couples are able to claim the entire credit.

This inequality is expected to worsen if the credit expands, as stated by Curran, where a family of two adults and two children would need to earn $48,000 to qualify for the full credit.

“Under the House Reconciliation Bill, it is projected that 1 out of every 3 children will be excluded from receiving the full credit nationwide,” Curran explains.

Senate Republicans are proposing a smaller increase to the child tax credit, up to $2,200, but the mechanics behind it would still limit the benefit for low-income households.

While many countries offer some form of child benefit for families, the U.S. stands out by excluding families with lower to moderate incomes, which are the families that could potentially benefit the most from such an investment, according to Curran.

In 2021, Congress briefly expanded and increased the child tax credit to include the country’s poorest families. Although the expansion was short-lived, lasting only six months, research indicates that it significantly reduced the percentage of children living in poverty by nearly half.

Studies demonstrate that investing in underprivileged children not only benefits them and their families, but also yields lifelong returns for the nation.

“For every dollar spent on an expanded child tax credit that reaches all children, the return is estimated to be at least $10 per year,” notes Curran.

This is because healthier children tend to perform better in school, secure higher-paying jobs in the future, and subsequently contribute more to the system through taxes.