Full extended credit is up to $ 3,600 for each child under 6 years old and $ 3,000 for children 6-17 years of age. In 2020, the full balance was $ 2,000 for each child under the age of 17, and in 2017 it was $ 1,000.

The new credit can now also be applied to an estimated 27 million children whose parents previously could not take advantage of it because they did not earn enough taxable income.

No income families are now eligible for full credit available to individual taxpayers up to $ 75,000 per year, married couples up to $ 150,000, and householders up to $ 112,500 per year.

The loan is gradually reduced for incomes above these thresholds, but it never falls below $ 2,000 unless an individual’s income is greater than $ 200,000 or $ 400,000 for a married couple.

Researchers have said the extended credit will dramatically reduce child poverty in the United States. Analysis of a Columbia University tax proposal, just like the one in the American Rescue Plan, estimates it will reduce child poverty from nearly 14 percent to 7.5 percent in a year, with Black, Hispanic, and Native American families being the biggest beneficiaries.

By comparison, according to a 2019 report by the Census Bureau, it took 10 years for the child poverty rate to drop from 17 percent in 2009 to 12.5 percent in 2019.