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Rural, low-income children would lose disproportionately if Congress does not extend the Child Tax Credit included in legislation passed in 2009. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act raised the tax credit for a family with two children and a parent working a minimum wage job from $248 to $1,725. That credit is set to expire at the end of this year.
The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities has issued a report finding that rural children will be over 20 percent more likely than urban children to be affected by a reduction in the child tax credit. This is because rural children are more likely to be in families where wage earners work for low pay.
If Congress does not extend the tax credits contained in the recovery act, the liberal CBPP estimates that 3.3 million children in rural low-income working families, and 14.8 million urban children, will see a reduction in their tax credits. Texas would have the largest number of rural children affected, 258,000. North Carolina follows, with 199,000 children, Mississippi would have 154,000 children affected and Georgia would have 139,000 rural children receiving lower tax credits.