Michael Hiltzik: The Child Tax Credit is our greatest antipoverty program. Why is Congress letting it wither?

Here are some documented truths about the federal Child Tax Credit:

— The enhanced credit, enacted in March 2021 as part of the American Rescue Plan, the government's pandemic relief package, reduced the child poverty rate by about 30%, keeping as many as 3.7 million children out of poverty by the end of that year.

— When the enhancements expired in January, the child poverty rate spiked to 17% from 12.1%, plunging 3.7 million children back under the poverty line. The impact was much worse on Black, Latino and Asian children than on white ones.

— The credit, which was paid out in monthly installments from July through December 2021 with the balance paid out as tax refunds in early 2022, had no detectable impact on the inflation.