The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that more than 3 million children in rural areas who benefit from the extension of the child tax credit in the stimulus package might lose it. Children in rural families are more likely to have parents with modest incomes, and under the old rules families couldn't apply the child tax credit to the first $12,500 of income.
This disparity reflects the generally lower earnings of rural workers and their families. In metropolitan areas, 49 percent of earners earn less than $30,000 a year. But in nonmetropolitan areas, 60 percent do. Low earnings are significantly more common in rural than metropolitan areas in 45 of the 48 states for which these data are available.
The challenges that poor rural families face are different than those who live in urban areas, but poverty is no less devastating. On top of this, a new report from the Foundation For Child Development (via) found that 2010 is likely to be a bad year for children: "The recession will wipe out virtually all progress for childrensince 1975, in the Family Economic Well-being Domain." What researchers call for is an expanded safety net. Instead, the expanded tax credit is due to expire at the end of the year.
-- Monica Potts
