New extended child tax credits are on the way to families in Mississippi

by

Ashley Norwood

• Published on July 15, 2021 • Comments

In this July 24, 2017 photograph, Otibehia Allen takes a drink of water after cooking dinner for her family in their non air-conditioned kitchen/dining room of their rented mobile home in Jonestown, Miss, the same isolated, low-income community where she grew up among the cotton and soybean fields of the Mississippi Delta. She works 30 hours a week at barely over minimum wage.
AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis

More than 360,000 families in Mississippi are eligible for the expanded Child Tax Credit. As payments begin rolling out today, families in Mississippi say the benefit will help them feel more secure and better able to deal with burdensome expenses.

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LaToya Harris of Jackson says she and her five children are still recouping from challenges brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. She lost her job at a childcare center when they were forced to close and when they reopened her hours were cut. Harris says monthly payments of about $800 in child tax credits will help bring some economic stability back into their lives.

"People are still hurting from when the pandemic happened," said Harris.

"Bills were past due, I can get caught up on credit card bills and stuff like that...get the kids situated. It'll better than it was last year."

The American Rescue Plan expanded the child tax credit for 2021 and allowed up to 50% be advanced to eligible taxpayers in 6 monthly payments. These benefits beginning today offer poor, working and middle-class families payments to help with regular expenses. As a result, nearly 55,000 children in Mississippi could be lifted above poverty.

Fallon Palmer, a single mother from Jackson, says her $500 monthly benefit will help keep food on the table for her three boys. She says she had to tap into her savings to sustain her household throughout the pandemic.

"My mom always told me to put up for a rainy day and this here to me is kind of like a rainy day fund," said Palmer.

"It'll help me to do extra things that'll also help me to save for just in case this happens again."

Palmer says she plans to put at least a third of her total earned child tax credit payment into replenishing her savings. The average benefit for 50,000 households is $3500, and low-income households with children will receive $5600 on average.