Dueling child tax credit plans: Could they help more couples embrace life?

As the U.S. presidential race accelerates toward a Nov. 5 ballot box battle, candidates continue to jostle for American approval through their respective abortion and reproductive health policy scenarios.

While pivoting positions may leave voters with a case of political vertigo, Democrats and Republicans alike share promotion of the child tax credit as a family-friendly party plank.

Vice President Kamala Harris — the Democratic presidential nominee — has suggested a robust increase in the child tax credit, a federal tax break that currently provides up to $2,000 per child to about 40 million American families every year. With the Harris-Walz plan, parents could receive $6,000 per child for the first year after birth and $3,600 per year for every qualifying year after that.

So could an expanded child tax credit under a Harris-Walz administration paradoxically encourage family expansion, at the same time as the duo argues for wider abortion access?

Harris told CNN’s Dana Bash in an Aug. 29 interview that her administration will be implementing her plan for “an opportunity economy” from “Day 1” — and offered the child tax credit as a prime example.

“I’ve already laid out a number of proposals in that regard, which include … what we’re gonna do to invest in families,” she said. “For example, extending the child tax credit to $6,000 for families for the first year of their child’s life to help them buy a car seat, to help them buy baby clothes, a crib.”

Later in the interview, Harris reminded Bash that the first year of the Biden administration — 2021, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic — extended the child tax credit “so that we cut child poverty in America by over 50 percent.”

Families continue to face many steep expenses, including everyday concerns such as food, housing, and health care. In addition, a new report from professional services firm KPMG documented a 263% rise in day care and preschool prices between 1990-2024.

The Republican vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, has proposed that families would receive a child tax credit of $5,000 per child. Vance’s proposal exceeds what is promised on the child tax credit in former President Donald Trump’s new GOP platform, but it is unclear whether the Republican presidential nominee plans to adopt his running-mate’s proposal. The 2024 platform commits Republicans to make permanent the child tax credit’s expansion to $2,000 per child under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act enacted during his administration.

Without congressional action, the child tax credit returns to $1,000 per child when it expires Dec. 31, 2025.

Like Harris, Trump has also found himself at odds with Catholic and pro-life concerns on the sanctity of life over his promise to veto any national abortion ban passed by Congress and committing to pursuing an “IVF mandate,” which could supercharge an industry where most of the human embryos created by in vitro fertilization are lost, destroyed or frozen for each one that gets to a live birth.

The Catholic Church teaches that all human life is sacred and must be respected from conception to natural death, which informs its stance against both IVF and abortion.

“I think the child tax credit is a really good thing — and increasing it, we support 110 percent,” Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life of America, told OSV News.

However, Day did not think it would help abortion-minded women.

“An abortion-minded woman isn’t going to think, ‘Oh, if I have a baby, I’m going to get a tax credit.’ I think what abortion-minded women need is support, and resources,” she said.

What will help, Day emphasized, is practical, pre-birth support — baby supplies; pregnancy centers; single mother homes. “If we’re serious about reducing abortion,” Day emphasized, “that’s where the focus should be.”

But other proponents of expanding the child tax credit do believe robust increases could have the potential to provide real resources that help abortion-vulnerable mothers choose life.

“We know many factors influence abortion rates — including economic factors,” said Joshua McCabe, director of social policy at the Washington-based Niskanen Center, told OSV News.

“We see this most clearly in survey data,” McCabe said. “In the U.S., 28 percent of those surveyed said being unable to afford a child contributed to their abortion. In a British survey looking at a new cap that eliminated their child tax credit for any child after the first two, 57 percent of those aware of the cap and subject to it said the policy contributed to their abortion.”

Social scientists have tried to measure the impact of policy changes, McCabe said, with somewhat inconclusive results. Some found that more generous benefits, bonuses and better child support enforcement reduced abortion rates in Spain, Italy and America; others recorded a smaller impact or none. Elsewhere, there were impacts on fertility, but not abortion. Other studies of traditional government-assistance programs also found mixed results.

“My takeaway from the evidence,” said McCabe, “is that the sorts of policies we see being proposed by Harris and Vance — bigger child tax credits and a baby bonus for newborns — do increase fertility and decrease abortion rates on the margin, because family economic situations play a role here. This is one of the reasons many pro-life groups and members of Congress support efforts to expand these credits in some way.”

Citing Republican Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida’s Providing for Life Act and Steve Daines of Montana’s Child Tax Credit for Pregnant Moms Act, McCabe concluded, “I expect Sen. Vance will support efforts in the same vein, but details remain light right now.”

It’s not yet clear if the child tax credit would be fully refundable under either Harris’ plan or Vance’s proposal — a detail that matters to low-income families, which don’t always owe enough taxes to benefit. The Democratic Party platform calls for the restoration of the child tax credit expanded under President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act, which was fully refundable, however Congress did not renew it.

Vance’s proposal would dispose of income restrictions, while Harris has not called for any change to child income tax income rules. The current guidelines stipulate that only couples earning $400,00 or less — or individuals earning $200,000 or less — can receive the credit.

“It’s great to see both campaigns realizing the importance of targeted support for families, especially with the expiration of the $2,000 child tax credit scheduled for next year,” said Patrick T. Brown, a fellow at Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center. “Parents bear the cost of having children, but society as a whole benefits from their efforts — so championing family-friendly policies makes political and economic sense.”

Still, Brown doesn’t anticipate a staggering rise in American fertility rates.

“I wouldn’t expect the proposals for a child tax credit expansion from either campaign to have a major impact on the country’s birth rate,” Brown noted, “for the simple fact that we know that nations with much more generous social spending on families have seen birth rates decline even faster than here in the U.S.”

Nor, Brown suggested, are the logistics of the child tax credit immediately helpful for those experiencing a crisis pregnancy.

“Similarly, while more money for parents is necessary to help give moms considering abortion more support, it’s not necessarily sufficient — it would be great to see either campaign thinking about getting money to parents when they need it most — around the time of birth, rather than waiting for the next year’s tax returns.”

However, Day is clearly frustrated that both Republicans and Democrats seem mired in partisan, election season optics around supporting families. She noted the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024 — a bill that already passed the House by bipartisan margins and strengthens the child tax credit — is currently stalled in the Senate.

“I know it’s an election year, and this is what people do,” Day said. “But we could have done this in January. We could have been helping families now.”

Nonetheless, Brown said he is encouraged.

“Proposals to increase the child tax credit to $5,000 or $6,000 aren’t the final word on making American public policy more pro-family,” he explained. “But it’s gratifying to see both parties talking about strengthening the best policy tool we have to make having kids a little more affordable.”

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