Poverty top threat to child health

Extending expansions of tax breaks meant to help struggling families would play a key role in boosting children’s health, a new paper argues.

{mosads}The paper, written by Glenn Flores of UT Southwestern and Bruce Lesley of First Focus and published in JAMA Pediatrics, calls poverty the top threat to children’s health, and calls both the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the child tax credit key tools in battling that threat.

“It shouldn’t be this hard for kids to grow and thrive in the world’s richest, most powerful nation,” said Lesley. “But children face obstacles at every turn – from a child poverty rate double that of seniors to a broken immigration system that says kids don’t count,” Lesley said in a statement.

Both the child tax credit and the EITC were expanded by the 2009 stimulus package, and then extended through 2017 in the fiscal cliff deal hashed out shortly after President Obama’s re-election. Obama and other top Democrats are seeking to further expand the EITC, by making it more accessible to low-income workers without children.

The authors also listed hunger, uninsurance, child abuse, obesity, gun violence, mental health, racial disparities, immigration enforcement and a dearth of research on children’s health as the other large threats.