#Another child tax credit payment went out today

The second payment of the 2021 advance child tax credit hit bank accounts Friday.

The Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service said that more than $15.4 billion was paid out in this round.

It’s the second of six payments to go out every month for the remainder of the year as part of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which increased this year’s child tax credit from a maximum of $2,000 per child to up to $3,600 per child younger than 6.

For children between the ages of 6 and 17, the maximum is $3,000 per child for 2021.

That means monthly payments will total $300 per child under 6 and $250 for older children.

The Internal Revenue Service sent out the first payment on July 15 to an estimated 35 million families.

More than 36 million people received payments on Friday, with the payments covering an additional 1.6 million more people in the second round than did in the first, according to data from the feds.

In New York, more than 2,000 families got payments, covering almost 3,300 kids. The average payout in the state was $412.

The first half of the credit will be doled out each month through the end of the year. Six more monthly payments for the credit will start going out after eligible families file their 2021 income tax returns.

Six more monthly payments for the 2021 credit will start going out after eligible families file their 2021 income tax returns.

The credit is available for couples who earn $150,000 or less a year, heads of households who earn $112,500 or less and individuals who earn $75,000 or less.

The Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, which collected data before and after the first payment in July, found that it coincided with a significant drop in the percent of families with children reporting food insufficiency and trouble paying household expenses.

There was no similar drop reported in adult households without children.

The share of families with kids that earn less than $50,000 and didn’t have enough to eat fell drastically after the July payments went out, from 26 percent to 18.5 percent.

“This tax relief is having a real impact on the lives of America’s children,” the Treasury Department and the IRS said Friday in a joint announcement.

The “vast majority” of recipients this month got the payment through direct deposit, the feds said.

“Due to a technical issue expected to be resolved by the September payments, a small percentage of recipients — less than 15 percent — who received payments by direct deposit in July will be mailed paper checks for the August payment,” they added.

Recipients can check the status of the monthly payment at the IRS’ Child Tax Credit Update Portal.

If the portal says a payment is pending, it means the IRS is still reviewing your account to determine your eligibility.

President Biden and a handful of Democratic lawmakers have said they hope to continue the boosted payments next year, but there aren’t any plans to extend the program as of now.

To be sure, the payments haven’t been without controversy.

Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation who helped draft President Bill Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform plan, said Biden’s plan “turns welfare reform on its head.”

“[P]art of the philosophy of welfare reform that we said we don’t want to pay people not to work, we want to incentivize work and we want to require work.

“What this very explicitly does is it turns welfare reform on its head” by removing the work requirement, he previously said.

The administration is “going back on the principle for the first time in 25 years of giving large cash grants, primarily to single mothers who do not work at all during the year,” Rector said.

He went on to say that Clinton was elected on “ending welfare as we know it, but this recreates welfare as we know it.”

“In fact, the value of this, which is for a mother with two kids who doesn’t work, is $6,000 to $7,000 per year,” he said.