Children Left Behind in Larger Families: The Uneven Receipt of the Federal Child Tax Credit

The Child Tax Credit (CTC) is one of the largest public expenditures on children, but lower-income families lose out because they do not have enough earnings to qualify for the full benefit. Previous research reveals that one-third of children are left out of the full federal Child Tax Credit and that those left out are disproportionately children of color, those in families with young children, those with single parents, and those who reside in rural areas and higher poverty areas.

In our latest research, we find another important, but often overlooked, factor contributing to children’s exclusion from the full Child Tax Credit—their family size. Children in larger families are more likely to be left out of the full Child Tax Credit than children in smaller families because the earnings required to access the full credit increases with the number of children in the family.

Nationally, more than one-third of all children live in larger families and half of these children receive no, or only a partial, Child Tax Credit. Our findings reveal that proposals to remove the earnings requirement embedded in the Child Tax Credit would produce a significant anti-poverty impact for children in all families, making the biggest difference for children in larger families.