scholarly journals American Exceptionalism Revisited: Tax Relief, Poverty Reduction, and the Politics of Child Tax Credits

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua McCabe ◽  
Elizabeth Popp Berman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Child Poverty ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
The United States ◽  
Tax Credits ◽  
Welfare Regimes ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Cultural Legacy ◽  
Tax Relief

In the 1990s, several liberal welfare regimes (LWRs) introduced child tax credits (CTCs) aimed at reducing child poverty. While in other countries these tax credits were refundable, the United States alone introduced a nonrefundable CTC. As a result, the United States was the only country in which poor and working-class families were paradoxically excluded from these new benefits. A comparative analysis of Canada and the United States shows that American exceptionalism resulted from the cultural legacy of distinct public policies. We argue that policy changes in the 1940s institutionalized different "logics of appropriateness" that later constrained policymakers in the 1990s. Specifically, the introduction of family allowances in Canada and other LWR countries naturalized a logic of income supplementation in which families could legitimately receive cash benefits without the stigma of "welfare." Lacking this policy legacy, American attempts to introduce a refundable CTC were quickly derailed by policymakers who saw it as equivalent to welfare. Instead, they introduced a narrow, nonrefundable CTC under the alternative logic of "tax relief," even though this meant excluding the lowest-income families. The cultural legacy of past policies can explain American exceptionalism not only with regard to CTCs but to other social policies as well.

The United States

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua T. McCabe
Keyword(s):  
Child Poverty ◽  
The United States ◽  
Tax Credits ◽  
National Commission ◽  
Tax Credit ◽  
Tax Relief ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Poor Children ◽  
Child Tax Credit

Chapter 6 looks at how the National Commission on Children brought attention to the problem of child poverty in the US, leading to the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit in 1993 and the introduction of the nonrefundable Child Tax Credit in 1997. In contrast to the cases of Canada and the UK, the growth of these tax credits, tracing their legacy to the dependent exemption in the tax system, was premised on the logic of tax relief rather than the logic of income supplementation. Originally, the National Commission on Children released recommendations for a fully refundable Child Tax Credit as the best way to tackle child poverty. This served as a successful springboard in Canada and the UK. This was not the case in the US, where the logic of tax relief remained dominant. Initial attempts to introduce a fully refundable Child Tax Credit quickly failed. Policymakers and the public deemed poor children undeserving of tax credits because their parents were not technically taxpayers.

The Fiscalization of Social Policy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua T. McCabe
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
Tax Credits ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Welfare Regimes ◽  
Strategic Adaptation ◽  
Tax Relief ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Family Allowances

This book challenges the conventional wisdom on American exceptionalism, offering the first and only comparative analysis of the politics of child and in-work tax credits. This comparative approach, analyzing the US, Canada, and the UK, upends everything we thought we knew about the politics of tax credits, accounting for both the timing of their development and the distribution of their benefits among families across liberal welfare regimes. Rather than attributing these changes to antiwelfare attitudes, mobilization of conservative forces, shifts toward workfare, or racial antagonism, the book argues that the growing use of tax credits for social policy was a strategic adaptation to austerity in all three countries but that the historical absence of family allowances in the US left the country with a policy legacy that institutionalized a distinct “logic of tax relief,” ensuring that the poorest American families would be ineligible for tax credits. Focusing on the twin puzzles of the growth and distribution of new tax credits across the three countries, the book explains both their convergence on the use of these tax credits and the US’ divergence from the UK and Canada on the distribution of these tax credits’ benefits.

Tax Equality for Immigrants: The Indispensable Ingredient for Remedying Child Poverty in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 233150242110348
Author(s):  
Roberto Suro ◽  
Hannah Findling
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Income Tax ◽  
Child Poverty ◽  
The United States ◽  
Tax Credits ◽  
Tax Credit ◽  
Childhood Poverty ◽  
Highly Effective

Both at the federal and state levels, tax credits have proved effective policy instruments to combat poverty, and they are at the heart of President Biden's massive initiative on childhood poverty. However, about one of every five children suffering poverty in the United States has an unauthorized immigrant parent and thus little or no access to tax credits. That is nearly two million children, and 85 percent of them are US citizens. Achieving historic reductions in childhood poverty thus will be impossible without remedying the eligibility exclusions and bureaucratic impediments that unauthorized immigrants face in the US tax system. All individuals who make money and reside in the United States are obliged to pay federal income taxes via a return filed with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). For unauthorized immigrants and others who do not qualify for a Social Security Number (SSN) that requires an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN). In this two-tier system, ITIN filers have the same income tax due as Social Security filers, but they do not receive the same credits. ITIN filers have never been eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and some of their children were excluded from the Child Tax Credit (CTC) in the Trump administration's 2017 tax bill. Both credits are highly effective anti-poverty programs, providing immediate relief while also incentivizing work and earnings. The tax credits are the critical policy tool in Biden's American Plan for reducing child poverty, and they would be funded through the budget reconicilation legislation devised by Congressional Democrats in the summer of 2021. As summer drew to a close, ITIN inclusion was beginning to enter the discussion among advocates and legislators about the bill's detailed provisions. But eligibility is not the only barrier. Internal government monitors have repeatedly criticized the IRS for heavy-handed and inefficient practices that have placed undue burdens on ITIN taxpayers and that have hindered compliance with the law. The use of ITINs has plummeted in recent years from a high of 4.6 million returns in 2014 to 2.5 million in 2020. Prompted by the economic losses and the medical toll suffered by unauthorized immigrants during the pandemic and by their newly valued roles as “essential workers,” the federal government and several state governments have taken important steps to lessen the exclusion of ITIN taxpayers. The first federal stimulus package excluded not only ITIN holders but also their family members with SSNs. Congress extended eligibility to members of ITIN households with SSNs for the second and third stimulus checks. Meanwhile, California, Colorado, Maryland, New Mexico, Washington, Maine, and Oregon broke with the federal government and made ITIN filers fully eligible for their state EITCs, and as of July 2021 similar measures were under consideration in four other states. Early evidence from California and Colorado suggests that ITIN inclusion could prove a highly effective means of reaching poor children with the benefits of a state EITC. Child poverty can only be attacked successfully if ITIN households receive equal access to federal and state tax credit programs. This can be accomplished if: Congress and state legislatures permit full eligibility for all EITC and CTC programs. Congress mandates reforms to the procedures for getting and keeping an ITIN that have been proposed in multiple reports to Congress by the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an internal monitor at the IRS. Immigrants’ rights advocates and other civil society organizations, with government support, undertake a multi-year campaign to encourage ITIN application and use. The IRS receives funding to support a greatly expanded ITIN program.

scholarly journals The Gendered Politics of Pandemic Relief: Labor and Family Policies in Denmark, Germany, and the United States During COVID-19

2021 ◽  
pp. 000276422110031
Author(s):  
Nino Bariola ◽  
Caitlyn Collins
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Child Care ◽  
Safety Net ◽  
The United States ◽  
Welfare Regimes ◽  
Family Policies ◽  
Economic Sectors ◽  
Cultural Legacy ◽  
Care Facilities ◽  
Child Care Facilities

The COVID-19 pandemic has magnified families’ struggles to reconcile caregiving and employment, especially for working mothers. How have different countries reacted to these troubling circumstances? What policies have been implemented to alleviate the pernicious effects of the pandemic on gender and labor inequalities? We examine the policies offered in Denmark, Germany, and the United States, three countries that represent distinct welfare regimes. We find important differences among the policy solutions provided, but also in the “cultural infrastructures” that allow policies to work as intended, or not. In Denmark, a social-democratic welfare state, robust federal salary guarantee programs supplemented an already strong social safety net. The country was among the first to lock down and reorganize health care—and also among the first to reopen schools and child care facilities, acknowledging that parents’ employment depends on child care provisioning, especially for mothers. Germany, a corporatist regime, substantially expanded existing programs and provided generous subsidies. However, despite an ongoing official commitment to reduce gender inequality, the cultural legacy of a father breadwinner/mother caregiver family model meant that reopening child care facilities was not a first priority, which pushed many mothers out of paid work. In the U.S. liberal regime, private organizations—particularly in privileged economic sectors—are the ones primarily offering supports to working parents. Patchwork efforts at lockdown and reopening have meant a lengthy period of limbo for working families, with disastrous consequences for women, especially the most vulnerable. Among such varied “solutions” to the consequences of the pandemic, those of liberal regimes seem to be worsening inequalities. The unprecedented nature of the current pandemic recession suggests a need for scholars to gender the study of economic crises.

Canada

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua T. McCabe
Keyword(s):  
Income Tax ◽  
Child Poverty ◽  
Tax Credits ◽  
Primary Method ◽  
Tax Relief ◽  
The Us ◽  
Cash Benefits ◽  
Child Tax Credit ◽  
Family Allowances ◽  
Initial Change

Chapter 4 examines how Canadian policymakers’ renewed promise to tackle child poverty translated into the Child Tax Benefit, the nonrefundable Child Tax Credit, and the Working Income Tax Benefit. Whereas the logic of tax relief served as the springboard for fiscalization in the US, the logic of income supplementation drove the process in Canada. This difference had important implications for the shape and scope of Canadian tax credits, enabling them to significantly reduce child poverty relative to the much weaker outcomes in the US. Family allowances offered policymakers an alternative to welfare as the primary method of delivering cash benefits to children. Canadian policymakers, including conservative policymakers and profamily groups, saw expanding child tax credits as a way to “take children off welfare” by redirecting benefits through a nonstigmatizing program. The initial change occurred under the Progressive Conservatives in 1992 and was consolidated under the Liberals in 1997.

Deafness and Ethnic Identity: The Idea of a Deaf State and its Resonances with American Exceptionalism and Frontier Ideology

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-90
Author(s):  
Marion Rana
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
Manifest Destiny ◽  
The United States ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Deaf Identity ◽  
American Nation

Abstract This article focuses on the nineteenth century as a pivotal time for the development of a Deaf identity in the United States and examines the way John Jacob Flournoy’s idea of a “Deaf-Mute Commonwealth” touches upon core themes of American culture studies and history. In employing pivotal democratic ideas such as egalitarianism, liberty, and self-representation as well as elements of manifest destiny such as exceptionalism and the frontier ideology in order to raise support for a Deaf State, the creation and perpetuation of a Deaf identity bears strong similarities to the processes of American nation-building. This article will show how the endeavor to found a Deaf state was indicative of the separationist and secessionist movements in the United States at that time, and remains relevant to Deaf group identity today.

City on a Hill: American Exceptionalism and the Elect Nation

2000 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 299-318
Author(s):  
J. R. Oldfield
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Elementary School ◽  
South Carolina ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Anthem ◽  
Pledge Of Allegiance ◽  
American Flag

Some years ago I was invited to spend a day in an elementary school in Columbia, South Carolina. The day began, as I imagine every day began, with the national anthem and the pledge of allegiance to the American flag. The children then sang a song, a ditty really, which began as it ended with the simple refrain: ‘I am special’. Later I was shown some of the work the class had been doing. Across the back of the room were pinned up the children’s attempts to answer a question that had been exercising me, namely what was special about the United States. Some of the responses were fairly predictable. America was special, one seven-year-old wrote, because it was a democracy. Others singled out freedom or liberty as their country’s unique virtue. One brave soul boldly asserted that America was special because Americans were rich, while another thought the secret had something to do with happiness.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document