By Conor Morris and Rashidah Adbulhaqq
As a mother of a 3-year-old child with cerebral palsy, Dortilia Jones had plenty of things she could be spending the monthly $300 federal advance Child Tax Credits on.
There’s only one problem: The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) never sent those payments to her. That’s money that could have helped the Maple Heights resident buy things her family needs.
It can be expensive raising a child with a disability. Her son, Dre, needs special shoes to go over the braces he wears on his legs, for example, and clothing and food are also a priority. She said she’s hopeful that Dre ultimately will be able to walk on his own, but doctor’s appointments also aren’t cheap.
“It (payments) would be going to something important, trust me,” Jones said.
Illustration by John Shiner, showng the variety of things Cleveland-area residents have spent – or could spend – the Child Tax Credit on. People we interviewed who received the advance payments said they spent it on food, transportation, utility bills, clothing and a few board games. People who had not yet received it said they would spend it on school supplies, food, and one woman said she would spend it on things her son needs, who has Cerebral Palsy. Art by John Shiner
Jones’s family is one of an estimated 116,500 families in Ohio – more than 4 million nationwide – who did not automatically receive the advance child tax payments, according to an estimate from the Center on Budget Policies and Priorities. The federal government implemented the payments earlier this year as a part of the American Rescue Plan.
The one-time advance payments are substantial, and represent the first time the Child Tax Credit has been given to families in this way in the U.S. These expanded benefits were touted by U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration as having the potential to cut child poverty in half, meant to help the country’s poorest families make ends meet. The expanded benefits would also be extended into 2022 if Congress approves the Build Back Better Act, but that now looks unlikely with West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin signaling he’s a “no” vote.
The first six months of advance payments equal:
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$1,800 per-child for children under the age of 6.
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Or $1,500 per child for children ages 6 to 17.
An equal amount is available if caregivers claim those children on their 2021 taxes next year, for a total of $3,600 or $3,000 (previously, the total was $2,000 per year, per-child).
Roughly 35 million families in the U.S. automatically received the $250- or $300-per-child advance monthly installments between July and December. And the data that has trickled out so far shows that the payments have significantly helped families struggling to make ends meet, reducing food insecurity and leading to a roughly 25% drop in child poverty in the U.S.
Kayla Minor, a local home health aide, sits with her two-year-old daughter A’Riyah as she learns about the Child Tax Credit during a November event at A Touch of Rain Nail Spa in Larchmere. Photo by Conor Morris.
However, at a special event hosted at A Touch of Rain Nail Spa in the Larchmere neighborhood in September, the Northeast Ohio Solutions Journalism Collaborative found multiple Cleveland-area residents – most of them single moms – who did not receive the benefit.
Kayla Minor, a Larchmere resident, is one of those parents. She said she ended up being audited by the IRS after her mom mistakenly claimed Kayla’s 2-year-old daughter on her taxes last year. So, she hasn’t received the advance Child Tax Credit payments or any of the stimulus checks.
Minor said that money would help with necessities for her daughter, A’Riyah–from school supplies to clothing to diapers.
“Right now I’m potty training her,” she said. “It’s not hard anymore, but I’ve got to keep spending money on Pull-Ups … they’re so much money for so little, only 11 in a pack.”
The advance payments have been a significant boon for other area residents, however.
Angie Bordeaux, a Bellaire-Puritas resident, has been juggling multiple jobs during the pandemic, on top of raising her 7-year-old son. Currently, she’s a sales associate at Target, a bartender and a special needs therapist, working well over 40 hours a week.
She said the extra $250 per month she’s been receiving through the Child Tax Credit has been “significant” for her little family. It’s helped her buy groceries and pay for transportation since she doesn’t drive. While she uses the bus plenty, Bordeaux said sometimes she needs to rely on rideshare options like Uber because the public transit system in Cleveland is “unreliable.”
“I know that once the 15th hits, I have that money to fall back on if my finances are not in check,” Bordeaux said.
Yvonka Hall, executive director of the Northeast Ohio Black Health Coalition, helps people understand the intricacies of the Child Tax Credit during an event at A Touch of Rain Nail Spa in November. The event was hosted by the Northeast Ohio Solutions Journalism Collaborative, A Greater Buckeye and the Northeast Ohio Black Health Coalition, in partnership with A Touch of Rain. Photo by Conor Morris.
Yvonka Hall, executive director of the Northeast Ohio Black Health Coalition, has become an expert on the expanded Child Tax Credit benefits over the last six months.
“It’s been a game-changer for many people,” Hall said. “It can help change their living conditions, being able to get clothing for their kids, or (address) the fact that food prices have gone up a lot.”
Alex Coccia, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Study of Social Policy who has studied the Child Tax Credit, said the number one reason why several million people did not receive the advance payments is because they had not filed taxes in the last year or two.
That includes multiple vulnerable groups of people: Immigrants who are hesitant to give the government information for fear of being deported, or were unable to file their taxes due to language barrier; low-income people who fear they’ll have to pay the money back; as well as the parents of children born in 2021 who were unaware they need to update their information through the IRS’s update portal in order to receive the money.
Hall said that there were several missed opportunities along the way to help people access the Child Tax Credit payments. But it doesn’t have to be that way, she noted.
Because a family can receive the entire tax credit once they file their 2021 taxes, Hall said, there now needs to be a concentrated effort from local nonprofits, government agencies and schools to inform people on how to file their taxes in 2022.
This story is a part of the Northeast Ohio Solutions Journalism Collaborative’s Making Ends Meet project. NEO SoJo is composed of 18-plus Northeast Ohio news outlets including Black Girl in the CLE. Conor Morris is a corps member with Report for America, and Rashida Adbulhaqq is a Glenville-based writer. Email Conor at cmorris40@gmail.com