Advocates for a new state tax cut for low- and middle-income households with children are intensifying their push in this spring’s General Assembly session, insisting federal cuts to human service programs and tariff-driven inflation now make relief critical. Policy research and academic group s joined constitutional officers, legislators and others at a Wednesday forum in the Legislative Office Building to also insist a $600-per-child credit, up to $1,800 per household, also would be a key driver of Connecticut’s future economy. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have a child-based credit within their income tax systems, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. But in 2019, just two years before Congress ordered a temporary one-year increase in the federal child tax credit to help families harmed by the COVID pandemic, only two states offered such relief, said John Iselin, associate director of economic analysis at Yale University’s Budget Lab. On other words, states saw firsthand the anti-poverty effects of child-based tax relief and saw how quickly the situation can reverse itself when that assistance isn’t offered. “We can see directly that people have been able to pay rent, they’ve been able to provide more food resources for their family and spend the dollars on a range of different uses for their children,” Iselin said, adding it allows families to dedicate more for health care and education — and also save to help their children in these and other areas as they mature. Connecticut’s child poverty rate, which stood at 6.8% when the federal credit was expanded, surged to 11.8% shortly after that extra relief went away, according to Connecticut Voices for Children, a New Haven-based policy research group that supports a state child tax credit. Iselin said states that create such a credit generally can shave between 1 and 4.5 percentage points off their child poverty rates. More recently, Congress and President Donald Trump ordered cuts that will strip almost $1 trillion from Medicaid, other human services, green energy and student loan programs over the next decade. Those cutbacks, coupled with new Trump administration tariffs that have raised prices on various consumer goods, have left about 40% of households here unable to support a basic survival budget, said Lisa Tepper Bates, president and CEO of the United Way of Connecticut. “This isn’t a year like any other year,” she said at Wednesday’s forum. The United Way’s state chapter is supporting a $600 credit that is fully refundable. That means even if a household earns so little it has no state tax liability to apply the credit to, it would have $600 per child added to its refund.  Keeping more children out of poverty, and ultimately helping them get better educated, increases their likelihood of contributing to the state’s economy when they reach adulthood, said state Treasurer Erick Russell. “It’s about keeping families here in the state, growing our economy, but also understanding the more people that we have who can meaningfully participate in our economy, the better it is for the state overall,” he said. And while Connecticut contains some of the wealthiest municipalities in the country, particularly in Fairfield county, it also is home to some of the poorest urban centers in the U.S. Caitlyn Gelfand, an early childhood educator in Bristol — which ranks in the bottom half of Connecticut municipalities in terms of median income — said it’s hard to understand why the state, given its overall wealth, doesn’t do more for families when the need is clear. “Everyone outside of Connecticut pictures Greenwich and Yale and Gilmore Girls and Hallmark Christmas movies,” she said. “But Connecticut is also Waterbury and North Hartford and Bridgeport and New Britain, and all of us deserve access and comfort.” Juan Hernandez of Colchester, one of several parents at the forum and the father of three children, said a state child tax credit would have been very helpful four years ago when he battled cancer and his wife also missed time at work to help care for him. Hernandez predicted enactment of a credit this year would be a godsend for many. “It touches everyone,” he said. “It’s finally a prayer being answered.” The Democratic-controlled General Assembly has been weighing proposals to create a permanent child tax credit since 2021. But except for a one-time income tax rebate ordered in 2022, which provided $250 per child, nothing has been enacted. Gov. Ned Lamont, a fiscally moderate Democrat, and many Republicans in the House and Senate minorities have favored broader forms of tax relief. House Republicans last October proposed cutting state taxes on the middle class by as much as $700 per year by boosting a credit that offsets a portion of municipal property tax bills. But the GOP plan would offer little to no benefit to Connecticut’s working poor since it would not be refundable. The Republican plan would cost about $500 million per year, while the most popular child tax credit plan carries an annual price tag of about $350 million. The General Assembly and Lamont ordered in 2023 the state’s first income tax rate reduction since the mid-1990s, which has returned about $300 per year to middle-class households. They have assisted the poorest of working households by boosting the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit to 41.5% of the federal EITC. This returned an average of $1,060 to about 185,000 households that generally earn less than $69,000 per year. Lamont’s budget spokesman, Chris Collibee, said Wednesday that “Gov. Lamont has ensured that affordability and opportunity are at the heart of his legislative agenda and every budget he’s signed.” The governor’s tax commissioner, former Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, who also attended the forum, said “the gulf between the haves and — for lack of a better term — have-nots in our state has gotten worse.” But Boughton said that while a child tax credit could assist those in need, Connecticut requires a multi-faceted response that also includes more job training and other economic initiatives. Lamont must deliver his updated budget proposal for the 2026-27 fiscal year to the General Assembly on Feb. 4. “The governor looks forward to collaborating with legislators as we approach the upcoming session and look to make any budget adjustments, while ensuring our fiscal health remains strong,” Collibee said. Though not speaking against tax relief, Lamont — who is seeking reelection this year for a third term — has been cautious when addressing the topic, reminding others that Connecticut stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in annual federal assistance because of cuts ordered by Trump and the GOP-led Congress. But state Comptroller Sean Scanlon, a Guilford Democrat who spearheaded early efforts to establish a child tax credit when he served in the legislature in 2021, said Connecticut is in a much stronger financial position now that it was even a few years ago. The state legislature established aggressive new budget caps in 2017 that have forced unprecedented surpluses averaging more than $1.8 billion over the past eight years. Governors and legislatures have used those surplus funds to create one of the largest rainy day funds in the nation while wiping out roughly $10 billion in pension debt. Connecticut also remains one of the highest-earning states, per capita, in the nation. “We have to think we have the abundance here to meet these needs,” Scanlon said. ...read more read less