Spiking Child Poverty Forces US States to Fill In Federal Void

The end of unprecedented pandemic-era federal benefits for families has sent US child poverty rates soaring, leaving a handful of state governments to step in to fill the gap.

Eleven states have created or expanded a fully refundable child tax credit following the expiration at the end of 2021 of the federal measure, which enabled families to get as much as $3,600 per child. Those national benefits helped cut the child-poverty rate by nearly half to 5.2% in 2021, according to the Census Bureau.

But the rate spiked to 12.4% last year after the program lapsed and a Democratic-led ...