The expansion of the federal Child Tax Credit is listed in report after report as the reason for a sharp decline in child poverty in 2021.
But child poverty had already been in decline for years prior to the expansion. Nearly 28% of American children lived in poverty in 1993, but the figure for 2019 was just a bit above 11%.
What are the factors driving the rate downward, and what are the implications where we live? We pose those questions and more to Dana Thomson, a research scientist at Child Trends, which tracks many figures of child welfare.