Sen. Young can help make honest work enough

By CHAKA COLEMAN
Guest Columnist

Picture a mother clocking in before the sun rises. Her day job – stocking grocery shelves, cleaning offices, or even working for local government – is necessary, but her paycheck is thin.

After rent, childcare, gas, and utilities, she sits at the kitchen table trying to decide which bill can wait. More often than not, the choice comes down to dropping her employer-sponsored health insurance or legally required car insurance – both essential to her family’s well-being. Unfortunately, tax relief arrives once a year, but children still need breakfast every morning.

Now picture that she wants to build a better life for her family, so she makes the difficult decision to reduce her hours or leave work altogether to go back to school, surviving only on intermittent jobs, paid internships, and student loans.

That mother, now an attorney and business owner, was me.

Our tax code should not deepen the strain families face daily. Under current law, the refundable portion of the Child Tax Credit does not begin phasing in until a family earns more than $2,500, meaning some parents earning the lowest wages receive little or none of the refundable credit.

Sen. Todd Young has offered a sensible correction.

In January, he and Sen. Maggie Hassan introduced the bipartisan Stronger Start for Working Families Act. The bill would begin phasing in refundable Child Tax Credit benefits with the first dollar a parent earns, helping those who take a leap of faith to invest in themselves, as well as those who simply are not in a position to earn more.

The Tax Policy Center estimates the proposal would cut taxes for 3.5 million families, increase recipients’ after-tax income by about $320, and direct 85 percent of the benefits to families in the bottom 20 percent.

To those in Washington, $320 may not seem like much. But to a single parent raising children, $320 can replace worn-out tires, cover school supplies, or simply keep the heat on.

In April, more than 508,000 Hoosiers received assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – nearly 80,000 fewer than one year earlier. That decline is happening as Indiana families face both federal SNAP cuts and new state restrictions, including tighter eligibility rules, lower asset limits, expanded work requirements, and more demanding verification requirements. Washington policy wonks don’t usually account for the ingenuity and gumption of a young parent who, with the support of a strong social safety net, can overcome difficult circumstances and go on to pay more in taxes than they received in assistance.

As Hoosiers, our faith is reflected in the grace we say before a meal, but it is also the reason we act when a neighbor has none. And as Americans, our values are rooted in hard work and opportunity; the latter an idea woven throughout our nation’s founding. A stronger Child Tax Credit would recognize the long hours parents already put in, while SNAP helps ensure one missed shift or unexpected bill does not leave a child without a meal.

Any parent, regardless of whether they have done everything right, should be able to feed their children. That is what SNAP and the Child Tax Credit are designed to do for our state’s most vulnerable families.

My ask is twofold but rooted in the same principle: I call on Sen. Young to finish what he started with the Stronger Start for Working Families Act and I ask the entire Indiana delegation to support its passage.

Working Hoosier parents are doing everything we ask of them as tax-paying citizens. The failure is not theirs alone; honest work still does not always pay enough to cover everything.

Sen. Young has already shown that he understands the challenge. I urge his colleagues in Congress to champion and protect these programs so that they can do what they were intended to do: support our most vulnerable neighbors and give working families an opportunity to build a better life.