Nearly a Third of Parents Spent Child Tax Credit on School Expenses

America Counts: Stories Behind the Numbers

A mother and her son look for new clothes at a store.

Nearly a Third of Parents Spent Child Tax Credit on School Expenses

Three in 10 families that received monthly Advance Child Tax Credit (CTC) payments spent them on kids’ school expenses, and 1 in 4 families with young children used them to cover child care costs, according to new results from the U.S. Census Bureau’s experimental Household Pulse Survey (HPS).

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) began issuing a monthly Advance Child Tax Credit payment to families with children in mid-July and this story discusses how families used the first three of the six checks.

According to the IRS, about 35 million eligible families received up to $300 for each child under age 6 and up to $250 for each child ages 6 to 17 in July, August, and September. These payments will continue every month through December.

In this story, we show estimates of how the CTC was used by adults in households that responded to the HPS in July, August, or September and focus on uses of the CTC that directly or indirectly impact children.

Continue reading to learn more about:

Some using child tax credit to pay off debt
When schools opened, more used CTC for school expenses
Different spending by race and Hispanic origin
Spending varies by ages of children
Advance Child Tax Credit
About the Household Pulse Survey

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