"Today is Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) Awareness Day, a time to bring attention to the EITC and other refundable tax credits to encourage more eligible taxpayers to claim them. Some 25 million working households claimed nearly $63 billion in federal EITCs last year.
The EITC’s critical support helps low- and moderate-income working families meet daily needs. Taxpayers mostly use the credit to pay for necessities like groceries, rent, utilities, medical expenses, and transportation, studies show.
The EITC is also a powerful anti-poverty tool, lifting 5.6 million people out of poverty in 2018, including about 3 million children. Studies find many long-term benefits to claiming the EITC. For example, children whose families receive the credit have healthier birth weights, better childhood nutrition, higher school enrollment, higher test scores, higher high school graduation rates, and higher rates of college entry."
Read the full article from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
To learn more on this topic, check out VAWnet's Earned Income Tax (EITC) & Other Tax Credits special collection.
