Tax Policy in Need of Better, More Inclusive Assumptions: Family Security Act 2.0
By Andy Nielsen
Earlier this year, United States
Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) released a framework for
his Family Security Act 2.0. As the name indicates, this is the second
version of an aggressive redesign of our federal tax code in an attempt to
streamline tax benefits to American families. Well, to some families.
The framework/plan (no bill text
has been released) makes major changes to the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and the
Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Much attention has been placed on the former,
given the temporary
expansions made through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) that
expired at the end of 2021. Unfortunately, 175,000
Hoosier children were pushed back into poverty or deeper poverty due
to the expiration of these important changes. The Senator’s framework makes
changes to the CTC that are “fully paid for” by restructuring the EITC and eliminating
the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, the State and Local Tax (SALT)
Deduction, and the Head of Household filing status.
The Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities provides an exceptional
analysis and overview of the
framework. Do yourself a favor and read it. The analysis provides details on the
good (taxpayers’ qualifying credit fully refundable, monthly payments available,
etc.) and the bad: “seven million families making less than $50,000 with about
10 million children, would end up worse off under the Romney plan than under
current law, with the typical loss exceeding $800 per family.” The Institute on
Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) digs even deeper with their new
report on the plan, finding that one in four children will be worse
off than under current law. As to not duplicate their analyses, let’s instead
focus on some of the assumptions behind the Senator’s plan because, as we know,
a model or plan is only as good as its assumptions.
Security
First, the framework commits an all
too common mistake: conflating the intended, optimal design of a particular tax
credit with that of another. The CTC and EITC are regularly discussed together
due to their well-documented and potent ability to fight poverty and improve
quality of life for individuals and families. But what are they designed to
achieve? The EITC is a
wage subsidy, it boosts
earnings as workers increase their hours, which encourages work. The
fundamental goal of the CTC is and should be to benefit
children, and the credit is a tax offset that recognizes raising a child
is expensive.
Unfortunately, the Romney framework
only permits taxpayers to recoup the full CTC per child with earnings at or
above $10,000. This is a work requirement and is incredibly misguided. Under
$10,000 in earnings, the framework provides a lower credit. It’s a
not-so-subtle way of saying that children from the poorest families are worth
less than children from moderate- to high-income families. Also, the $10,000
threshold is indexed for inflation, while the maximum credit itself is not.
Over time, the real financial impact erodes, putting long-term benefits of the
Family Security Act 2.0 into question. Finally, the plan’s requirement that
both children and parents have a Social Security Number is appalling. It treats
some American children as second-class citizens.
Family
The framework’s overemphasis on
marriage is evidence of the intended goal, which is not actually better tax
policy. Marriage is simply not the best or right option for some individuals
and children. There is confounding research on how and who marriage benefits,
with the best outcome
being biological parents cohabiting together without serious
conflict. Anything outside of that and the benefits are fuzzy. Proposals that
redesign our tax code and ignore the social reality of single heads of
household push a mixed narrative of social, emotional, and physical health versus
a path toward financial stability. Senator Romney’s elimination of the Head of
Household deduction cuts a tax benefit for over 415,000
Hoosier households (2019) – 92% of whom come from households earning
$75,000 or less. As ITEP points out, the
“main reason some families fare worse under Romney’s plan is its treatment of
single parents.”
Who Pays
Half of the plan ($46.5 billion) is
paid for through changes to the EITC, redirecting and cutting benefits from households
earning less than $60,000 per year. However, absent from this reform is
consideration of why families earning $400,000 need a CTC at all. The Senator’s
framework does not lower the maximum income or more aggressively phase out the
CTC from higher-earning individuals and families. The net effect is that a
family earning $25,000 is eligible for the same maximum credit as a family earning
$400,000 per year; however, the former will also likely see cuts to their EITC
as a way to pay for the higher-earners’ larger credit. Even worse, take a
single individual with a four-year-old child living solely on Supplemental
Security Income ($841 per
month); the Romney framework would provide that family $0, but
families earning $400,000 with a four-year-old would receive a $4,200 tax
credit.
ITEP provides some very useful
data
on the distributional impact of these changes. Hoosier families earning between
$153,700 and $335,000 would see the largest tax
cut, on average $460. However, families earning between $26,000 and $52,300
would see an average tax increase of
$90.
Conclusion
Again, no bill text has been released,
so other questions on the framework will remain unknown for the time being. The
framework assigns the administration of the monthly CTC to the Social Security Administration.
Not a bad idea given the agency’s work on other benefit programs, but will the
bill author provide for additional federal funding to properly administer? Regardless,
the framework provided is misguided and therefore suboptimal. In order to
create a stronger, more equitable economy, we can and should design our tax
code in a way that provides opportunity and security for all families.
Statement: Indiana organizations laud House passage of Build Back Better Act as huge step forward to improve Hoosiers’ lives.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 19, 2021
Contact: Emily Weikert Bryant, 317-452-9829, ewbryant@feedingindianashungry.org; Jessica Fraser, 260-438-3659, jfraser@incap.org
Statement attributed to Emily Weikert Bryant, Executive Director of Feeding Indiana's Hungry, and Jessica Fraser, Director of the Indiana Institute for Working Families:
Statement: Indiana organizations laud House passage of Build Back Better Act as huge step forward to improve Hoosiers’ lives
Now, Senate must quickly pass the bill to deliver for Hoosiers
November 19, 2021, Indianapolis—The Indiana Institute for Working Families and Feeding Indiana’s Hungry released the following joint statement in response to the US House of Representatives passage of the Build Back Better Act:
“This is a huge step forward to increasing opportunity, reducing poverty, and shrinking racial inequities for Hoosier children, families, and workers,” said Emily Weikert Bryant, executive director of Feeding Indiana’s Hungry. “If enacted, the Build Back Better Act will help people get health coverage, afford stable housing, food, and childcare for their children, and meet other basic needs. We thank Representatives Carson and Mrvan for their support. We urge our Senate delegation to support the bill and help get it quickly over the finish line."
“Build Back Better would spur a historic reduction in child poverty and a marked decrease in child hunger,” said Jessica Fraser, director of the Indiana Institute for Working Families. “It would provide affordable, quality health coverage to millions of uninsured Americans. It would expand access to stable, affordable housing at a time when housing instability and homelessness are a reality for far too many in Indiana. And it would strengthen families and help parents stay in the labor force by reducing the cost of child care, expanding free access to universal pre-K, and providing paid family and medical leave. Together, these investments will narrow racial disparities that are rooted in our nation’s long history of racism and discrimination.
“And the bill is fully paid for by provisions designed to make sure corporations and the wealthy pay more of their fair share in taxes. That makes this bill a great deal for Indiana families.
“As the Senate takes up Build Back Better, time is of the essence: If Congress fails to pass BBB by the end of the year, improvements in the Child Tax Credit – which is successfully helping tens of millions of families with kids cover the cost of raising children – will expire. Families will see their credit reduced or eliminated entirely, and payments of up to $300 per child, per month that families are using to meet basic needs will stop after December 15. With costs of everyday essentials rising, Indiana families are counting on Congress to not take away this lifeline.
“We urge our senators to support the Build Back Better Act, which will advance racial and economic justice and improve Hoosiers’ lives. The sooner they pass the Build Back Better Act, the sooner families in our state will benefit from its important investments.”
###
About Feeding Indiana’s Hungry
Feeding Indiana’s Hungry, Inc. is the statewide association of Feeding America affiliated food banks. Member food banks include:
Food Bank of Northwest Indiana, Merrillville
Food Bank of Northern Indiana, South Bend
Food Finders Food Bank, Inc., Lafayette
Community Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Indiana, Ft. Wayne
Second Harvest Food Bank of East Central Indiana, Inc., Muncie
Terre Haute Catholic Charities Foodbank, Terre Haute
Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana, Indianapolis
Hoosier Hills Food Bank, Bloomington
Tri-State Food Bank, Inc., Evansville
Dare to Care Food Bank, Louisville, KY
Freestore Foodbank, Cincinnati, OH
About the Indiana Institute for Working Families
The Indiana Institute for Working Families, a program of the Indiana Community Action Association, engages in research and promotes public policy to help more Hoosiers achieve and maintain financial well-being.
Tax Policy to Reduce Poverty: Congress Should Continue Important Investment in Children
By Andy Nielsen
This post was published as an op-ed on October 21, 2021 in the IndyStar.
Congress is currently considering the Build Back
Better Act that would prevent major changes to the Child
Tax Credit (CTC) from expiring at the end of 2021. The current debate on
this sizable piece of legislation focuses on one thing – the price tag. Specifically,
how much is Congress willing to spend on transformational social policy?
Many numbers have been thrown around: $3.5
trillion, $2
trillion, $1.5
trillion maximum. It is worth noting that it will cost something – statements that this bill will pay
for itself are supported more by politics than economic analysis. However,
focusing on a price tag alone is a flawed assumption. This is not a spending
decision, it is an investment decision.
Build Back Better addresses fundamental problems in our economy
and the value we place on our fellow citizens. The legislation is the offspring
of several plans
that include policy solutions supported by research and empathy. It appears the
question now is whether the risk of adding a fluctuating, undetermined amount
of money to the national debt is worth the reward of ensuring everyone in this
country has stable housing, enough to eat and that children do not live
in deprivation.
The most recent indication is that Congress will fund many of Build Back Better’s provisions over a shorter term to reach consensus and achieve passage of a bill itself. It is imperative that as negotiations continue, investments in children and their futures through the expanded CTC stay intact.
As written, the bill extends the changes made to the CTC in the American
Rescue Plan (ARP). This includes increasing the amount of the credit for
children in some households and the option to receive part of the credit
through advance monthly payments. However, Build Back Better goes even further
by making the credit permanently
refundable, allowing low-income families to capture the full value of the
credit. This is extraordinary news for families and households who need it the
most.
Some
lawmakers have floated the idea of imposing a work requirement on the CTC as
a method to means test the credit. While this would reduce the cost, imposing a
work requirement pulls the credit away from its primary goal, which is to
benefit children.
Prior
to the ARP, the maximum credit per child was $2,000. The credit was
incredibly regressive, as taxpayers’ refundable portion was limited to 15
percent of earnings over $2,500, capped at $1,400. Some argued this was to
incentivize work, but low-wage workers were held to a higher standard in order
to receive the same benefit as their higher-earning counterparts.
For example (in 2018), assume a single father with one
five-year-old child worked 40 hours per week, 52 weeks a year at minimum wage,
equating to $15,080 in total wages. He filed as Head of Household, bringing his
taxable income to $0 after the standard deduction. Since he had no taxable income,
he had no tax to offset with tax credits, and his calculated refundable credit
was $1,887. But since this was capped, he received just $1,400. To receive the
full credit, he would have needed to work an additional 24 hours per week,
all 52 weeks.
Under previous law, working full time was not enough. You needed
to earn more or work even harder to qualify for a benefit intended for your
child. This was the tax code’s way of proving that it valued children from higher-income
families more than children in less affluent households. This presents a much
larger question: what should be the actual goal of the CTC?
The fundamental goal of the CTC is to benefit children. Plain
and simple. The credit is an investment in the future productivity that a child
will generate for society. It should be fully available to all children in
families who actually need it to help offset the costs of child rearing. Under
the example above, Build Back Better provides $3,600 because the focus is on
the child and not on a misguided work requirement. Congress has a duty to
maintain these provisions in a final agreement. If cost is the issue, Congress should
be more critical of allowing married households earning $400,000 to redeem a
$2,000 CTC per child.
We already know the impact of these changes – reducing childhood
poverty in Indiana by 43%
and increasing the number of children fully benefiting from the credit by 558,000
(of whom 45 percent are non-White). The debate on the future of these
programs will continue, but what should not be up for debate is the importance
of investing in children and improving their quality of life.
Tax Policy to Reduce Poverty: Outlook for Temporary Expansions to CTC & EITC
By Andy Nielsen
Congress is currently considering a sizable piece of legislation
- the Build Back
Better Act. The bill is politically feasible thanks to a wonky federal
budget law that allows for budget
reconciliation, and would have a transformative effect on
individuals, families, and children across the United States. Two provisions
that the Indiana Institute for Working Families has been tracking closely are
the current expansions to the federal Child Tax Credit (CTC) and Earned Income
Tax Credit (EITC). As noted in previous posts (CTC
& EITC),
these changes are effective for 2021 only, so Congress will need to take action
or else these important reforms to our tax code will expire. The good news? The
Build Back Better Act steps up to the plate.
CTC:
The Build Back Better Act extends the changes made to the CTC in
the American
Rescue Plan (ARP) through 2025. This includes increasing the amount
of the credit for children in some households and the option to receive part of
the credit through advance monthly payments. However, the Build Back Better Act
goes even further by making the credit permanently refundable – you can find a
refundability primer on an earlier blog post here
– allowing low-income families to capture the full value of the credit. This is
extraordinary news for families and households who need it the most.
The bill also eliminates the Social Security Number (SSN)
requirement for children, allowing children with Individual Tax Identification
Numbers (ITINs) to be eligible for the credit. This is not as much a change as
it is a reversion to previous law before the enactment of the Tax Cut &
Jobs Act, which established a SSN requirement. Approximately 11,000 additionalchildren in Indiana would be eligible for the CTC under this change.
Households have until November 15, 2021 to sign up for advance payments. In
September, 2.3 million Hoosier children in 1.3 million households
received advance payments.
EITC:
The Build Back Better Act also makes permanent the ARP’s changes
to the federal EITC, expanding benefits to childless workers and widening the
eligible age range to include younger and older workers. While this is
encouraging news, Congress should seriously consider addressing some of the
remaining issues such as expanding
the credit to all adults, including those with ITINs, and eliminating
the marriage penalty.
Outlook /
Next Steps:
Last week, the House
Committee on the Budget combined the various components of the Build Back
Better Act into one single piece of legislation and reported the bill out of
committee. This incorporated CTC and EITC expansions included in the House Ways
& Means Committee (discussed above). What is next is far from certain.
Larger debates on avoiding a government shutdown, bipartisan infrastructure
legislation, emergency funding to address the damage from Hurricane Ida, and
raising or suspending the debt ceiling complicate the future of the Build Back
Better Act. However, federal lawmakers have a duty to clear the deck and
deliver, especially when it comes to public policy that will have a meaningful
impact on people’s lives.
An Avoidable Crisis: Raise the Debt Limit
Federal lawmakers
are in the process of addressing the United States' statutory borrowing limit –
known more commonly as the debt ceiling or debt limit. Years of debate
surrounding the amount of debt the federal government has obtained and whether
our borrowing demonstrates proper fiscal management does not appear to be
changing anytime soon. However, do not confuse what is happening now as fiscal
prudence or sound budgeting or even a public policy debate. Because if the
focus is on “policy”, this issue would not be an issue. Unfortunately, the
current debate is only about politics. If our federal lawmakers are not careful
and do not act soon, their inability to raise or suspend the debt ceiling will
have serious, negative consequences on the global economy.
In 1917, Congress established a maximum amount of money the federal government
may borrow. Since then, Congress and the President – every iteration of
Republican and Democratic control – have raised the debt ceiling 98 times. The
logic is simple because the policy decisions have already been made. Why?
Because the debt limit does not eliminate, reduce, or otherwise minimize the legitimacy
for the federal government to make payments required by law or contract.
Congress has already agreed to and passed funding for mandatory spending (think
Social Security), discretionary spending (think national defense), interest on
existing debt (think creditworthiness and being a responsible borrower), and emergency programs (think almost every
dollar related to the government response to COVID-19). Raising the debt limit just allows the United
States Department of the Treasury to actually disburse and make those payments.
While the federal government has run in to this problem before, it has never actually defaulted on its obligations or lacked the resources to follow through. That puts the government in a weird spot because it is unclear what the government would actually do. The Treasury Department is currently operating under “extraordinary measures” to prevent default, but Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen indicated that without action, sometime in October (likely 10/18/2021) the Treasury Department’s cash balance “will fall to an insufficient level, and the federal government will be unable to pay its bills.” What could ensue would be nothing less than a financial catastrophe and for no other reason than perceived political gain.
One of the first,
more likely scenarios would be drastic cuts to the funding states receive from
the federal government. For perspective, in state fiscal year (FY) 2019 – July 2018
through June 2019 – the federal government provided $13.6 billion to the State of Indiana or nearly 40% as a
share of state spending. In FY2020, federal grant payments to Indiana rose to $15.9 billion. Absent raising the debt limit, Indiana
could see immediate cuts to:
--School breakfast and
lunch programs;
--Grants that help
provide special education services in schools;
--Health insurance for
low-income Hoosiers, through Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance
Program;
--School readiness for
children enrolled in Head Start;
--Programs that help
Hoosier families and individuals meet their basic needs, such as Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families (TANF),
the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), and Housing
Choice Vouchers;
--Funding to help address
the ongoing opioid epidemic; and
--Investments in airports,
highways, and drinking water infrastructure.
These are just a few
of the programs and investments at risk, and the order and magnitude of any
cuts are unknown. What we do know is
that programs will lose funding if the debt limit is not suspended or raised.
Simultaneous to funding cuts to states, the pain of default could be immediate
on the economy and global financial markets, presenting a real likelihood of
recession. According to Moody’s Analytics, “the downturn would be comparable to that
suffered during the financial crisis. That means real GDP would decline almost
4% peak to trough, nearly 6 million jobs would be lost, and the unemployment
rate would surge back to close to 9%. Stock prices would be cut almost in
one-third at the worst of the selloff, wiping out $15 trillion in household
wealth.” Layered with the ongoing global pandemic, this is a difficult
situation to imagine.
There is good news.
Federal lawmakers still have time to put the economic health of the domestic
and international economy above short-term political hedging and wins. Based on
the current trajectory, it appears a deal will materialize at the last minute
to avoid a cataclysmic, yet completely avoidable, event. The next few weeks
will be telling. Let us ask our political leaders to show up and safeguard our economy,
national security, fiscal responsibility, and the livelihoods of individuals,
families, and children.
An Open Letter to our Senators and Members of Congress
September 24, 2021
An Open Letter to our Senators and Members of Congress:
While the American Rescue Plan has
provided much-needed relief to Hoosiers, those measures were only temporary.
More must be done to ensure we can build back better over the long term without
leaving anyone behind.
We can’t just accept a return to
normal as a victory. For too many families in Indiana, a return to normal means
a return to housing instability, hunger, and overdue bills. We have the
opportunity to implement long-term solutions that help families become
economically secure; ensure millions of kids don’t grow up in poverty and have
stable homes and enough to eat; offer health coverage to millions of people who
don’t have it; and narrow racial inequities. To seize this opportunity, we ask
you, our Members of Congress and Senators, to ensure the upcoming recovery
legislation helps Hoosiers by extending the expanded Child Tax Credit and
Earned Income Tax Credit, closing the Medicaid coverage gap, making robust
investments in workforce training, and increasing funding for the Housing
Choice Voucher Program.
Congress has been able to provide
temporary relief to children, seniors, and families, but now we ask you to go
further by supporting and quickly passing recovery legislation that builds back
better.
Sincerely,

Emily Weikert Bryant
Executive Director
Feeding Indiana’s Hungry

Jessica Fraser
Director
Institute for
Working Families
And the following organizations:
Wellspring Interfaith Social Services
United Way of Marshall County Inc.
United Way of Bartholomew County
United Northeast Community Development
Corporation
Tri-State Food Bank
Thrive West Central
Thrive Alliance
The Learn More Center
The Arc of Indiana
St. Vincent de Paul Indianapolis
Southeast Community Services
RecycleForce
Prosperity Indiana
Pace Community Action Agency, Inc.
Northwest Indiana Community Action
NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social
Justice
Mother Hubbard's Cupboard
MCCOY (Marion County Commission on
Youth, Inc.)
Marshall County Community Foundation
Lincoln Hills Development Corporation
LifeTime Resources, Inc.
LifeSpan Resources
Labor Institute for Training, Inc.
Keys2Work
John Boner Neighborhood Centers
Interlocal Community Action Program,
Inc.
Indy Hunger Network
Indianapolis Neighborhood Resource
Center
Indiana State AFL-CIO
Indiana Public Health Association
Indiana Muslim Advocacy Network
Indiana Family Health Council
Indiana Community Action Association
Indiana Coalition Against Domestic
Violence
Indiana Association of Area Agencies
on Aging
Immigrant Welcome Center
Hamilton County Harvest Food Bank
Generations
Food Bank of Northwest Indiana, Inc.
Food Bank of Northern Indiana
First Things First Porter County
Faith in Indiana
Exodus Refugee Immigration, Inc.
Eastern Indiana Works (d/b/a Alliance
for Strategic Growth)
Covering Kids & Families of
Indiana
Community Harvest Food Bank of NE
Indiana, Inc
Community Foundation of Wabash County
CICOA Aging & In-Home Solutions
Church Community Services
Child Care Answers
CAP, Inc. of Western Indiana
All-Options
Tax Policy to Reduce Poverty: Federal EITC Expansion Moves toward Parity
The federal tax code is getting a lot of attention lately. There
has been particular focus on the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) and the new
feature that allows families to capture the credit through advance monthly
payments. This attention is for good reason given the impact it will have on
Hoosier families and children, which we recently
discussed at length. The CTC dramatically changed through the American
Rescue Plan (ARP), which also included an important change to the
Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Specifically, the ARP expanded the EITC for
childless adults by (1) allowing younger and older working adults to claim the
credit, (2) increasing the maximum credit, and (3) raising the income threshold
at which the credit phases out (for otherwise eligible workers).
Prior to the ARP, childless
workers were eligible for the EITC only between ages 25 and 64. The ARP reduced
the eligible age to 19 for most workers. Students attending school at least part time
are now eligible at age 24, and foster children and homeless youth are eligible
at age 18. The new law also temporarily eliminated the maximum age for
childless workers, allowing workers 65 and older to claim the credit in 2021.
And yes, 2021 only. Similar to the CTC, these changes to the EITC are temporary.
The ARP increased the maximum credit for childless workers in
addition to phasing in the credit more aggressively and phasing the credit out over
a higher income. See below:
Over
367,000 Hoosier workers without children would benefit from this expansion
each year, of whom over a quarter are non-White. Approximately
11.4% of Hoosiers would receive a federal tax cut of $690 on average in 2022, providing
meaningful relief to individuals who need it the most to meet their basic
needs.
While these changes will affect working Hoosiers in a demonstrable way, it is not without unintended consequences and pitfalls. As Congress and the President work to make changes to the EITC permanent, it will be crucial that they eliminate the marriage penalty and extend eligibility to all young adults – regardless of their school enrollment status. Congress and the President have the opportunity to recalibrate our tax code in favor of people. Now is the time to get this right and build upon the work already done.
Hoosier Women Continue to Face Challenges Due to Ongoing Pandemic
The Institute gratefully acknowledges the support of Women’s Fund of Central Indiana, a CICF Fund, for this blog post and our research on gender disparity in Indiana.
Financially Vulnerable Hoosiers Report
Back in October of 2020, the Institute conducted a qualitative survey that we promoted on social media to hear from Hoosier women in real time about how the on-going COVID-19 crisis was impacting their lives. The responses were startling and we reported them in a blog post: “Hoosier Women Sound the Alarm.” We did not repeat the survey from October; however, we do have some additional survey research that can help us see how women are feeling regarding the pandemic’s impact on their lives.From September 2020 to March 2021, we surveyed thousands of financially vulnerable Hoosiers about a whole host of issues, including COVID-19’s impact on their lives and well-being.[1] Looking at just the responses that we collected from January to March 2021 from Hoosiers who identified as women, we had 529 responses. Even in early 2021, nearly a year into the pandemic, 51% of these respondents reported that they were financially worse off due to COVID-19. Because financially vulnerable Hoosiers struggle to pay bills, typically don’t have emergency savings, and are likely to be asset poor, interruptions in employment can have long-term, cascading effects on financial well-being. We heard about expenses going up like childcare and groceries, hours being reduced in industries that were hardest hit such as food service, and medically fragile Hoosiers (or those with medically fragile people in their home) not being able to work. For many, these effects were also filtered through the lens of overt and systemic racism. Survey respondents told us:
Expenses are higher
"We have to choose which bills to pay versus which can be put off. Before COVID-19 we were paying all the bills."
"We are so behind in rent and barely keeping the utilities on. I am barely keeping food in the house too."
"I had to take out a loan in the early months of COVID-19 in order to have the food and supplies we needed to get by and now have that monthly bill to pay."
Childcare affordability and access are a challenge
"Single mother to a 6-month-old baby and 9-yr-old struggling to find work that fits my schedule and afford daycare and or find all the above during virus."
"I had to take FMLA due to COVID-19 isolation with positive case in home. Then when ready to go back, schools went to eLearning, all children are school aged. No daycare or family able to help due to jobs."
"Unable to hold employment because of lack of child care during virtual learning.
Struggling from daycare closures frequently due to COVID-19."
COVID-19’s health complications affect financial well-being
"Husband is only income, he has COVID-19 pneumonia, and he was unable to work for 4 weeks. Unsure how many hours he can return weekly while on oxygen. The loss of time on site will continue to affect our weekly income by about 40% for at least an additional 8 weeks."
Risk of infection made earning difficult
"Month off work, anytime I feel sick it’s assumed I have COVID-19 and I have to get a COVID-19 test."
"Health issues (asthma /COPD), fear of COVID-19, anxiety debilitating."
"I have a very medically fragile, disabled child that I am the sole care giver to. She has had 3 open heart surgeries & takes medication for pulmonary hypertension for serious lung disease. My other daughter also has a heart defect. We have been house bound since the outbreak, since with their underlying conditions, they would unlikely recover. For this reason, I had to quit my part time job & lost that income, which affected us."
"I am unable to find full- or part-time work to help support us in fear of getting COVID-19 and spreading it to my infant & older child with Down Syndrome whom has lung disease."
"Because I had a massive heart attack in 2019, and I've been in the medical field for 20 years, but now COVID-19 and all my doctor's will not allow me to work. I do not know anything else but medical."
My industry has been hard-hit industry or my hours reduced (including significant other)
"Construction worker. COVID-19 has people fearful to allow me in to their homes. They have less money to do improvements due to COVID-19."
"I am unable to babysit in my home as normal to help provide income for my household."
Racism
"I am normally employed through gig work during the school year but with the current situations, it has been difficult, especially being Asian."
"With extra food stamps & stimulus money, it’s kept me above water."
"The extra food stamp assistance, the extra boost in unemployment my husband received in the summer, and stimulus helped tremendously.
"The stimulus checks and food assistance (OA and Gleaners mobile pantries) have helped to make ends meet without any problems."
"The extra unemployment benefits weekly paid from the government has been very helpful."
Reason |
ME |
MY
SPOUSE/PARTNER |
Couldn’t
find a job |
15% |
6% |
Employer
would not give me more hours |
11% |
6% |
Lack
of childcare |
25% |
5% |
Caring
for a family member |
15% |
1% |
Health/Medical
limitation or disability |
28% |
9% |
Lay-Offs
or furloughs due to COVID-19 |
13% |
8% |
Afraid
to work due to COVID-19 |
18% |
5% |
Some of the survey respondents with children struggled to find childcare; 16% reported that they couldn’t find care that matched their work schedule and 30% couldn’t find care that was affordable. This is no surprise as childcare affordability has long been a challenge for financially vulnerable Hoosiers and all indications are that COVID-19 has exacerbated those high costs. In fact, a paper from the Center for American Progress posits that the cost of center-based care has gone up 47% since before the pandemic and the cost of home-based care has gone up 70%.
An additional challenge for women re-entering the workforce is the fact that Indiana is still missing childcare slots compared to before the pandemic. According to the Early Learning Advisory Committee’s COVID-19 Impact report, only 58% of childcare programs remained open during the shutdown, 21% were temporarily closed, and 22% had not re-opened as of June 30, 2020. Since then, programs have been re-opening, but according to the COVID-19 Impact Dashboard, we are still down about 290 programs since March 23, 2020. Only a small percentage of these are still closed due to COVID-19 - the majority have closed for other reasons - however, the fact remains that there are not as many places for parents to take their kids to receive childcare. Furthermore, nearly 470 programs out of the 3,928 open childcare programs take Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) vouchers that help lower-income families pay for childcare costs. Finally, COVID-19 safety protocols have limited capacity at childcare facilities compounding the supply problem.
COVID-19 didn’t just affect the financial well-being of Hoosier women but other aspects as well, 73% of respondents told us that their stress levels had increased due to COVID-19. Data from more quantitative sources confirms much of what we have heard from financially vulnerable Hoosier women. Hoosier families are still struggling, and women continue to carry most of the burden.
According to The Century Foundation’s UI Data Dashboard, 49.6% of Hoosier UI claimants since March 2020 identified as women. This is notable because only 46.7% of Indiana’s total workforce identifies as women. For Black Hoosiers, the disparities are more striking. Black Hoosiers accounted for 17.7% of claimants while only making up 9.4% of the workforce. Both Hispanic and White workers had smaller percentages of claimants compared to their share of the workforce (see Table 2).
Table 2: Unemployment Insurance Data Dashboard, 3.1. Demographics of UI Claimants - Average
since March
Race/Ethnicity |
%
of UI Claimants Since March 2020 |
%
of the Total Workforce |
Asian |
1.9% |
Data
Unavailable |
Black |
17.7% |
9.4% |
Hispanic |
6.4% |
8.07% |
White |
71.9% |
85.7% |
Not Just a Hoosier Challenge
Women in Indiana and across the U.S. have left the workforce in record numbers. In fact, economist Allison Schrager was recently cited in an NPR story, “Women, Work and the Pandemic.” Her analysis shows that less than 50% of all women, both inside and outside of the labor force, were employed in 2020 – the lowest level since the 1980s! However, because of COVID-19, there is real concern that it will take women a long time to regain their past labor force participation. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF)’s Women’s Health Survey, women’s reasons for leaving the labor force had just as much to do with the lack of support available for caregiving as it did with the virus itself. Key takeaways included:· Three out of ten working mothers said they had to take time off because school or daycare was closed.· Over one in ten women report that they have new caregiving responsibilities as a result of the pandemic.
· Low-income women are three times more likely than higher income women to report quitting a job for a reason related to COVID-19.
The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) recently released an analysis that bears out the experiences described by women who answered KFF’s survey. The analysis compared the 2019 and 2020 unemployment and labor force participation numbers of women with and without minor children. They reported two disturbing findings for those of us who work on issues effecting financially vulnerable people, pointing to evidence that really is no surprise. Firstly, “‘working-class mothers[2]’ experienced the largest decline in employment and the largest labor force exodus between 2019 and 2020.” The employment level of working-class mothers dropped by 7.4 percentage points in 2020.” Furthermore, the report states that the share of working class mothers who said that they were not in the labor force was 13.3 percentage points higher than that of mothers with a Bachelor’s Degree. This analysis drives home that not only has the pandemic caused a “She-Cession,” but that among women, it is the financially vulnerable women, particularly the moms, who have been hardest hit.
Recent reports indicate that some women are returning to the labor force. The U.S. Department of Labor reported that more than 400,000 women returned to the labor force in June 2021. However, there are some caveats to this good news. According to the July 2021 factsheet from National Women’s Law Center, 97% of the women who have returned to the labor force are still looking for work. Of those that found jobs, many are in the low-wage service sector. Finally, while the progress is encouraging, it will take many months of steady growth for women to regain the labor force participation numbers they held before the pandemic.
Recommendations
* Increase funding for Child Care subsidies to meet the needs of low-income families with children. Better yet, it’s past time for universal childcare.
[1] This survey was conducted with current and former customers of Indiana’s Community Action Agencies. Additionally, the survey was texted and emailed, so participants had access to those technologies.
[2] Educational Attainment, specifically the attainment of a Bachelor’s Degree was used as a proxy for “working class.” They also looked at whether the women had minor children.