Open Access Journal Article

The Expanded Child Tax Credit and Educational Attainment in Rural, Majority-Minority Communities

by Ethan Bennett a  and  Mengzhong Zhang b,* orcid
a
Loans Administrator, Erie County Redevelopment Authority, Erie, PA, USA
b
MPA program director, Gannon University, Erie, PA, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
JEA  2023 2(4):39; https://doi.org/10.58567/jea02040003
Received: 5 May 2023 / Accepted: 14 June 2023 / Published Online: 22 June 2023
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Abstract

Despite the status of the United States as one of the world’s economic superpowers, the country is plagued by child poverty. The issue of child poverty is most prominent in rural, majority-minority communities, where years of limited opportunity, often created by systematic oppression, have created a vicious cycle of economic despair. There are a number of policies that have been explored which could limit the effects of child poverty, most notably the Expanded Child Tax Credit (ECTC), which was introduced as part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021. This paper uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to thoroughly examine this policy (ECTC) and its potential to both cut child poverty in the short term and increase educational attainment and economic mobility in the long term for recipients. The ECTC program ended in 2022 and only lasted in a short period. By examining the impacts of a similar and long-standing but less accessible and generous program, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), on educational attainment in specific communities we can theorize and determine the significance the Expanded CTC would have. We use EITC program as a proxy of ECTC and reach inference of the long-term impact of ECTC program on children’s education attainment. The result of this research indicates a number of benefits of the Expanded Child Tax Credit, including its potential to cut child poverty and increase educational attainment, its impact on future economic prosperity in rural, majority-minority communities, and the policy’s ability to decrease economic disparities between non-metro and metropolitan areas.

Keywords: Expanded child tax credit; educational attainment; rural; majority-minority communities;
Copyright: © 2023 by Bennett and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
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ACS Style
Bennett, E.; Zhang, M. The Expanded Child Tax Credit and Educational Attainment in Rural, Majority-Minority Communities. Journal of Economic Analysis, 2023, 2, 39. https://doi.org/10.58567/jea02040003
AMA Style
Bennett E, Zhang M. The Expanded Child Tax Credit and Educational Attainment in Rural, Majority-Minority Communities. Journal of Economic Analysis; 2023, 2(4):39. https://doi.org/10.58567/jea02040003
Chicago/Turabian Style
Bennett, Ethan; Zhang, Mengzhong 2023. "The Expanded Child Tax Credit and Educational Attainment in Rural, Majority-Minority Communities" Journal of Economic Analysis 2, no.4:39. https://doi.org/10.58567/jea02040003
APA style
Bennett, E., & Zhang, M. (2023). The Expanded Child Tax Credit and Educational Attainment in Rural, Majority-Minority Communities. Journal of Economic Analysis, 2(4), 39. https://doi.org/10.58567/jea02040003

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