Here’s What “Pro-Family” Trump Did to Families This Year |
Since entering the White House for the second time, President Donald Trump has explicitly cast himself as a “pro-family” president. His administration has frequently adopted the language of the pronatalist movement, promoting ideas and policies intended to encourage Americans to have children.
But many of the ostensibly family-oriented policies proposed by the White House and approved by Congress this year will primarily benefit higher-income households, leaving millions of lower income families in the lurch.
In July, the Republican-led Congress passed a massive legislative package that extended certain tax breaks while dramatically slashing social safety net programs. A provision to increase the amount of the child tax credit, which was set to decrease at the end of the year, has one of the most direct and immediate impacts on families. However, the law set new parameters that will exclude millions of immigrant and low-income children from its benefits.
The maximum amount of the credit is now $2,200 and indexed to inflation beginning in 2026. But the credit begins phasing in for households earning at least $2,500, and, unlike the Covid-era child tax credit that briefly slashed the rate of child poverty in the U.S., is not fully refundable. If the credit is greater than the amount that a family pays in income taxes, they would receive only up to $1,700 as a refund for the 2025 tax year. According to recent research by the Columbia University Center on Poverty and Social Policy, around one in four children under age 17 would be ineligible for the full credit because their parents do not earn enough, representing roughly 19 million children: 17 million previously ineligible beneficiaries who saw no gains from the new law, and 2 million from moderate-income households newly ineligible for the full credit.
“That math just doesn’t really make sense just in general, at any time, but it also especially doesn’t make sense when a lot of the economic indicators we see for families is that they are having a hard time covering the cost of their bills in other areas,” said Megan Curran, the director of policy at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy.
This research also found that a two-parent family with two children would need to earn a minimum of $41,500 in 2025 to be eligible for the full credit; prior to the passage of the law, the analysis found, a family of four would have needed to earn $36,000 to receive the full credit. The federal poverty level for a family of four in 2025 is just over $32,000—meaning that households living at or below the poverty level were already far from earning enough funds to receive the full credit. Moreover, under the new law, adults claiming the credit must have a Social Security number, and all children claimed must have a Social Security number. The Urban Institute estimated that 2 million eligible children would not receive the benefit because their parent does not have a Social Security number.
Another provision included in the Republican tax and spending bill limited to children with a Social Security number are “