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Lorena Dennehy of Lisbon is a member of the Maine People’s Alliance.
I would describe my family as pretty average for Maine. My husband and I live in Lisbon with our two-year-old daughter. We both work full time, at stable jobs that pay us enough to get by. And we’re lucky to be able to live close to our families, too, in the community where we grew up.
My family is doing what we’re “supposed” to do, and our salaries are enough that we don’t qualify for most kinds of aid for families, like housing support, MaineCare, or food stamps. But things are hard. Everything is so expensive: Rent, food, health insurance, daycare, diapers and wipes, you name it. At $200 per week for one child, day care costs just as much as our monthly mortgage. Even with our “good” jobs, we’re close to the edge every month of not being able to pay our bills.
We’re fortunate that we’re not living in poverty, like one in 10 Mainers and one in eight Maine kids. But that doesn’t mean we’re not struggling. My husband and I have considered getting second jobs, but how would that even be possible when we already work full time and are raising our child? I think it’s sad that it’s come to this, that a two-parent household with both working full time isn’t enough.
And my family isn’t alone in this. A lot of the families we know are struggling to make ends meet, especially with the cost of daycare, not to mention the added costs of extracurricular programs and activities. My daughter loves to dance and is learning to swim, but whenever it comes time to sign up for those activities, my husband and I have to figure out if we can make it work.
No matter who we are and where we’re from, we all believe in giving kids their best start. That’s what the child tax credit does: It’s cash to help make families make ends meet. Simple.
The Child Tax Credit (CTC) has been around since 1997, and during the pandemic the American Rescue Plan Act expanded it to provide more help to more families. The 2021 expanded CTC lifted 2.9 million children out of poverty, and when Congress failed to extend the expanded credit in 2022, the child poverty rate more than doubled. Because families with the lowest incomes were no longer eligible, that meant millions of children all over the U.S. going to bed hungry.
That’s not right. But we have it in our power to fix it.
One important step forward is a bill in the U.S. Congress right now. The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act Child Tax Credit provision in it that could lift as many as 400,000 American children above the poverty line in the first year, while bringing another 3 million closer to moving out of poverty, and do even more in the second year.
This bill passed the House with support from both parties, but now it’s stuck in the Senate. As a Mainer, a voter and a parent, I’m calling on our senators — Sens. Angus King and Susan Collins — to push for a vote on a version of this bill that includes the CTC expansion the House passed. Maine families shouldn’t have to worry about making sure our children have what they need.
Our Maine senators have a reputation for being reasonable, and that’s what this CTC expansion is: Reasonable. Senators, please do the right thing.
