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ANN ARBOR—A University of Michigan researcher who has extensively examined the effectiveness of the social safety net contributed to a national study that found the pandemic-era tax credit expansions helped reduce child poverty by half.

Katherine Michelmore, associate professor at U-M’s Ford School of Public Policy, and experts from across the country authored a congressionally mandated report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. The work of the provides a comprehensive assessment of the temporary tax credit expansions’ impacts, as well as alternative policy options to reduce poverty.

The findings align with Michelmore’s exploration of the impact of the 2021 Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit on low-income families. In some of her prior research, she and her colleagues found that expansion greatly reduced food hardship and improved families’ abilities to stay current with their rent.

Michelmore discusses the conclusions of the committee, her path to joining it and some surprises along the way.

Did anything jump out or surprise you from the findings?

In some ways, our main headline findings—that the 2021 expansions reduced child poverty by about 50%—were surprising in themselves. These policies were implemented at a time when lots of other pandemic policies were in place: There were economic stimulus payments that were just introduced, expansions to unemployment benefits, and other provisions.

It is quite surprising that on top of all of these other pandemic-era policies, expanding the CTC and EITC still had a massive impact on child poverty.

How did you come to be selected for the committee?

I guess you could say that I interviewed for the committee. Jen Gootman from the National Academies reached out to me at the end of 2023, after the report was commissioned by Congress.

We had a conversation at that point about the scope of the statement of task, and my relevant expertise on the topic. I think I was ultimately chosen to participate in the committee because of my prior work on both the EITC and CTC.

Where may—or should—things go from here from a policy perspective?

We are not advocating for any particular policy in the report; it is intended to provide estimates of how the policies introduced in 2021 affected child poverty. We also conducted some simulations based on policy parameters that have been discussed in Congress, but we do not make any recommendations about particular policies to adopt.

Instead, we offer estimates of how different policy structures would impact child poverty, how much those policies would cost, and how the benefits would be distributed across the income distribution.

Is there anything else you’d like to add about your work?

In addition to conducting an analysis of how the credits affected child poverty using a modeling simulation, we also held several listening sessions with families to better understand how the credits were implemented and how families viewed the credits. These sessions provided several important insights about the benefits. First, families overwhelmingly said the monthly CTC payments served as a critical economic buffer that helped them meet their basic monthly needs.

However, there was also some confusion about the benefits. Some people worried that they might have to repay the monthly benefits when they filed taxes, or they wouldn’t be eligible for a large refund when they filed taxes. They also worried that receiving the benefits might affect their eligibility for other benefit programs, like food stamps.

Finally, these listening sessions were helpful in hearing from families about how they would change the policy moving forward. One of the things they said over and over is they wanted flexibility in being able to choose whether to receive the benefit in monthly installments or as a lump sum.