0:00

Hey Pitchfork listeners, Goldie Hear news

0:02

broke last week that Congress has

0:04

allegedly agreed on a partial renewal

0:06

of the expansion of the child

0:09

tax credit And so we thought

0:11

now would be a good time

0:13

to rerun episode from Twenty Twenty

0:16

One in which we talked with

0:18

Wendy Bach about the child tax

0:20

credit and why it's so effective

0:22

at lifting millions of children out

0:25

of poverty. We hope you enjoy.

0:28

The rising inequality. And growing

0:30

political instability that we see today

0:32

are the direct result of decades

0:35

of bad economic theory is trying

0:37

to build our economy from a

0:39

bottom up of the middle out.

0:41

Not with top down. middle out

0:43

economics is the answer Because Wall

0:46

Street and will this country great

0:48

know class filters drunk. The more

0:50

the middle class thrives, the better

0:52

the economy is for everyone. even

0:54

rich people like me. This

1:02

is Pitchfork Economics with Nick A

1:04

An Hour a podcast about how

1:06

to build the economy from the

1:08

middle out. Welcome to the Show.

1:17

Big. News recently American July the

1:20

first checks when out to

1:22

families with children from be

1:24

expanded federal child tax credit.

1:26

It's a lot of money.

1:28

And working people's pockets. Ah,

1:31

It was part of the one point

1:33

nine trillion dollar kobe. Relief Package

1:35

that President Biden signed in March

1:37

and it has extended and expanded

1:40

these credits for another year. They

1:42

they had been part of the

1:44

original Kobe Relief and it says

1:47

I said it's a it's a

1:49

lot of money. Before the expansions

1:51

families provided with up to two

1:54

thousand dollars per child under seventeen.

1:56

Now it's thirty six hundred dollars

1:58

for each trial. under six

2:01

and three thousand dollars for which

2:37

is quite extraordinary. I mean I think

2:39

that the thing that's really great

2:42

about the child tax

2:44

credit otherwise known

2:46

as the CTC is

2:49

that it is true centrism in the sense

2:51

that it's a benefit, it's

2:53

a universal benefit aimed

2:55

at the majority of citizens

2:58

and it's a general welfare

3:01

benefit rather than a poor person's

3:03

benefit which makes it more universal

3:05

and ideally more supportive. I've

3:07

always found it odd how that word welfare

3:10

which is a good thing, we want to

3:12

improve welfare has been

3:15

it was turned into a bad word.

3:18

You know President Clinton famously

3:22

said you know with his reforms how

3:25

we've ended welfare as you know

3:27

it which effectively meant that

3:29

we went from 68% of

3:32

families with children who were

3:34

living in poverty receiving some

3:36

federal benefits down to only

3:38

28% and

3:41

now we're almost back to where we

3:43

were before Clinton ended welfare

3:45

as we knew it in the mid-90s

3:47

and placed it

3:49

with that incredibly stingy, punitive

3:52

and difficult to apply for a

3:55

system. Yeah this is a really

3:57

significant step for the federal government.

4:00

It's clearly going to really

4:03

significantly impact the

4:05

lives of tens of millions of

4:08

people and may reshape

4:11

how we think about the

4:13

role that government can play

4:15

in providing people a decent

4:17

life. And, you

4:20

know, as such, I think it's

4:22

really worth understanding at a deeper

4:24

level and exploring. And to do

4:27

that, we have an amazing expert

4:29

with us. Wendy Bach is

4:31

a professor of law at the

4:33

University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and

4:35

she's a nationally recognized expert in

4:38

poverty law, and has dedicated her

4:40

life to representing children and families

4:42

in poor communities. And she's

4:45

going to talk us through precisely

4:47

what this new benefit does and why

4:50

it's a good thing and why we

4:52

should hope to make it last for

4:55

a very long time. Hi, my

5:03

name is Wendy Bach. I'm a professor of

5:05

law at the University of Tennessee.

5:07

I have the great privilege of

5:09

teaching primarily in our clinical program,

5:11

which means that I represent clients

5:13

along with my students every day,

5:16

and also teach some other stuff.

5:18

I specialize in social

5:21

welfare policy and poverty policy and

5:23

what we call the criminalization of

5:25

poverty. And next summer, I have

5:27

a book coming out from

5:29

Cambridge University Press called prosecuting

5:31

poverty, criminalizing care. So Wendy,

5:34

big picture, what makes the child tax

5:37

credit so special? And what

5:39

makes it a notably new approach

5:41

to supporting families? I

5:43

would call the expanded child tax

5:45

credit really revolutionary in American social

5:48

welfare policy. And the reason simply

5:50

is universal. This is a cash

5:52

benefit delivered in the same amount,

5:54

in the same way to families

5:57

along nearly the entire

6:00

U.S. income spectrum, from families with no

6:02

income at all to married couples earning

6:04

over $150,000. Although

6:08

policies like this are quite,

6:10

quite common in other Western

6:12

democracies, the U.S. has very,

6:14

very few universal benefits. Instead,

6:16

as a practical matter, the United

6:19

States is strange and unique in

6:21

that it really has three benefit

6:23

systems that break down almost

6:25

precisely by income level. So

6:27

we have what I like to call welfare for

6:29

the wealthy, benefits at the top, delivered

6:32

mostly through tax expenditures, through the

6:34

tax code. We have benefits across

6:36

the board, just for the elderly,

6:38

Social Security and Medicare. And then

6:40

we have benefits at the bottom

6:42

that are means tested. And I

6:44

think we're gonna talk a bunch

6:46

about those and the differences in

6:48

those. But the child tax credit

6:50

is joining Social Security and Medicare

6:52

as a universal benefit. And that's

6:55

really extraordinary for American social

6:57

welfare policy. That's super cool.

6:59

So you described the

7:01

universal benefits that we have for

7:03

old people, but can you describe

7:06

some of the benefits, some of the

7:09

welfare for the wealthy? Like what are some

7:11

great examples of that? So we

7:13

spent in 2019, $1.3 trillion on

7:19

something we call tax expenditures.

7:21

And these are benefits through

7:23

the tax code for social

7:25

welfare purposes. The ones that

7:27

we're most familiar with and

7:29

the ones that are super

7:32

expensive are the mortgage interest

7:34

deduction. That's an extremely valuable

7:36

deduction that goes predominantly to

7:38

the very top of our

7:40

income distribution. And the other

7:42

one- It's about a hundred billion a year, isn't it?

7:44

I think it is, yes. And

7:47

then the exclusion for

7:50

employer paid health insurance is

7:52

another enormously valuable benefit

7:55

that goes disproportionately to the wealthy.

7:57

So that's welfare for the wealthy.

8:00

And the funny thing about those

8:02

benefits, and the CTC is a little different than

8:04

this, but most of

8:06

those benefits are really invisible. So

8:09

invisible that a lot

8:11

of folks don't even know they're getting welfare

8:13

when they get them. If you ask them

8:15

if they get government benefits, they will say

8:17

no, despite the fact that they're getting dollars

8:20

in hand from the government through these

8:22

tax expenditures. The CTC is a little

8:25

different because it's a little more visible.

8:27

It's going into bank accounts. It's coming

8:29

with a letter from the president explaining

8:31

what it is. So people

8:33

are experiencing perhaps the

8:35

CTC a little differently because it's

8:38

like the pandemic benefits are visible to folks

8:40

who are receiving it. From my perspective, that's

8:43

a good thing. Yeah. And

8:45

people didn't have to apply for it. If they

8:48

were already filing their taxes, this

8:50

is coming automatically. So in

8:52

the vast majority of circumstances, that's right.

8:55

So if you filed in 19 or

8:57

20 and you have a child

9:00

who would now be a dependent child,

9:02

or if you filed for pandemic related

9:04

emergency benefits, you're going to get it

9:06

either direct deposit in your bank account

9:08

or check in the mail. There are

9:10

about 4 million families that qualify

9:13

for the expanded CTC, but don't fall

9:15

into that category. And we're having to

9:17

do a little work to get those

9:20

guys into the program. But other than

9:22

those 4 million people, and that's a significant

9:24

number, but other than those 4 million people,

9:26

everyone's getting it pretty automatically

9:28

at this point. Do you recall

9:30

how much this benefit

9:33

is costing annually? So

9:37

all told, it's about $110 billion

9:39

being pumped into local economies through this

9:41

benefit. That's great. So how

9:44

will it impact people's lives? I

9:47

like to think about benefits like

9:49

this in two ways. Right?

9:51

There are benefits to the family, today,

9:53

and the kids, today. And

9:56

then there's the long-term benefits

9:58

to kids. if they

10:01

get economic support during

10:03

their childhood. We know different

10:05

things about both of those things. The news

10:07

is really good on both

10:09

those fronts for benefits like that. For

10:12

the short-term, what's it going to do

10:14

today? The study I

10:16

like to look at is one

10:18

that just came out recently about

10:20

the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration Project.

10:23

This was a $500 a month payment to 125

10:26

residents of Stockton, California

10:28

who lived in a neighborhood with a

10:30

median income at about $46,000 a year. It

10:34

was an experiment. There's a

10:36

treatment group and a control group

10:38

with similar characteristics. The 500

10:40

is a good number to look at because that's

10:42

what a single-parent

10:44

household with two kids over five are

10:47

going to get under the CTC. They

10:50

had some really interesting

10:52

findings after this

10:54

started about a year out. The

10:57

first, and this is a

10:59

finding I don't think we need. I think we

11:01

should assume that for people like most

11:03

other people are going to make good choices with their

11:05

money and we know they do, but lots of people

11:07

think they don't. Just in case

11:09

we need to know this, folks

11:12

in the Stockton experiment spent their money

11:14

on basic needs. The largest spending was

11:16

on food, utilities, auto care, and transportation.

11:18

Less than 1 percent was spent on

11:20

tobacco and alcohol. So folks are making

11:22

good economic choices. Again, I

11:25

don't really understand why we think they wouldn't

11:27

but there you go. But

11:29

in terms of how cash in

11:31

hand affected them, there were

11:33

really interesting positive findings. It

11:36

affected their time and

11:38

that's really important. Poverty

11:41

creates stress, creates

11:44

time crunches. You're constantly

11:46

looking for short-term employment,

11:48

unstable employment. That

11:51

little bit of financial input alleviated

11:53

stress and created time. Time to

11:55

spend time with children, time to

11:57

invest in themselves, do training. program.

12:00

There was a decrease in what

12:02

the researchers called forced vulnerability, right,

12:04

having to depend on other networks

12:06

for basic needs. There was

12:08

less income volatility. They were better

12:10

positioned over time to handle a

12:12

$400 emergency expense with cash on

12:15

hand as opposed to by borrowing

12:17

the money or taking

12:19

away from some other bill.

12:21

There were lower incidence of

12:23

anxiety and depression, statistically significant

12:25

improvement in mental health. And I

12:27

think the kicker, the full-time employment

12:29

moves from 28% at the start of the experiment

12:31

to 40% full-time

12:35

employment a year later. These

12:37

are all good short-term outcomes that we

12:39

can expect to see. Long-term,

12:42

how are the kids going to

12:44

do? The news is also very

12:46

good. We know that cash and

12:48

your cash benefits into a family

12:50

during childhood materially improves the children's

12:52

outcomes as adults. Higher education, higher

12:54

earnings, increased life expectancy, better

12:57

mental health, improved intergenerational mobility. So cash

12:59

in hand to families is just going

13:01

to do a lot of good. So

13:04

you studied the differences between

13:06

systems of support and care

13:08

versus systems of punishment. Yes.

13:10

So can you talk about

13:12

our general approach to child

13:15

and family poverty, how that aid can

13:17

be viewed in that framework, and where the child tax

13:19

credit falls on that spectrum? Sure.

13:22

So just a little definition

13:25

before I launch into this. So when

13:27

I think about systems of care, it's

13:29

really broad, right? Cash and near-cash benefits

13:32

of the kind we've been talking about,

13:34

and other forms of support, medical and

13:36

mental health care, social work, the like.

13:39

Systems of punishment, right? When I

13:42

think about it, I'm talking about

13:44

child welfare and criminal system actors,

13:46

police prosecutors, probation, jail, prison, things

13:49

like that. So

13:51

the reality in most

13:53

mean-tested benefits and in

13:56

poor communities overall is

13:58

that those Those two systems,

14:01

the systems that we set up

14:03

allegedly to help families and the

14:05

systems that can take away your

14:08

kids and throw you in jail

14:10

are deeply, deeply intertwined. And

14:14

often asking for

14:16

help exposes

14:19

you to

14:22

possible loss, child welfare

14:24

intervention and possible loss of your

14:26

kids or intervention in how you're

14:28

living your family life and

14:31

possible police involvement and

14:33

additional criminal involvement. And

14:38

I don't think, I

14:40

think this is very, very hard to imagine

14:42

if you don't practice in those communities,

14:46

you're not working in those communities, you haven't

14:49

lived in those communities. And I think the

14:51

best way to understand

14:53

the differences between

14:56

these two systems is

14:58

to think about how it happens at the

15:00

top and how it happens at the bottom. So

15:03

let's take housing. Okay, welfare

15:06

for the wealthy, we already talked about

15:08

this, the home mortgage

15:10

interest deduction is a substantial

15:12

benefit for wealthy families to

15:15

support their housing needs. On

15:17

the bottom, we put some money into

15:20

supporting housing, predominantly

15:22

through public housing in the

15:24

Section 8 program. When you apply

15:26

for something like Section 8 or public

15:29

housing, you're going to have an in-person

15:31

interview, you're going to have potentially work

15:33

or volunteer requirements, you might be drug

15:36

tested, you're going to sign

15:38

a consent form allowing them to see

15:40

all kinds of records

15:42

about you and your family, you could

15:44

lose that housing for failing to comply

15:46

with a vast number of

15:49

both behavioral requirements and documentation

15:51

requirements, you're constantly being asked

15:54

to recertify, to reproduce paperwork

15:57

and focusing really

16:00

The. Presence. Of

16:02

government officials in your home through

16:04

home inspection anything they see. right?

16:07

That makes them worry about the safety

16:09

of your children and it could be

16:11

no food in your refrigerator. Right?

16:14

Because you don't have enough money so

16:16

you're applying for assistance to get food

16:18

in your refrigerator arcs the you can

16:20

end up. With. A Child Welfare Of

16:22

World. So. Now think about that.

16:25

And. Then think about receiving the home

16:27

mortgage interest deduction. The imagine that before

16:29

you get your home mortgage interest deduction.

16:31

Some is like well sorry go the

16:34

you really does have to pee in

16:36

the top surface and you know I'm

16:38

sorry. It might have been a mistake

16:40

but it's green positive for this drugs.

16:43

So to get your. Home. Mortgage interest

16:45

deduction. You're gonna have to go into the

16:47

drug treatment program. And if you don't, we're going to take

16:49

over. Your bed, right? So. That's.

16:52

How different idiots. And.

16:55

That the experience of most means

16:57

tested benefits and poverty systems in

16:59

poor communities is that there's this

17:01

constant humiliation and scrutiny and threat

17:03

on this. If he sees not

17:05

like that, it's much more. as

17:07

we talked about. Moral Like: the

17:09

tax expenditures are social security a

17:11

separate from that which is one

17:13

of the things that makes it

17:15

so good. But

17:17

I don't think. People. Can

17:19

really imagine how different these things are

17:22

unless you've been close to them in

17:24

some way. And let's be

17:26

clear that example you use Blood

17:28

Safer for housing vouchers are sexually

17:31

vouchers on I'm not just section

17:33

eight. you've got to go through

17:36

the same hooks when you're applying

17:38

for medicaid but it's a different

17:40

agency says that. The same hooks

17:43

ah if you are applying for

17:45

of for snap for food stamps

17:47

but it's a separate agency so

17:50

you might not have food in

17:52

the fridge because you got some

17:55

snag. in the paper paper work on

17:57

the food stamps and then one day

17:59

in so your house because

18:01

you're applying for the, you're getting

18:03

the housing vouchers, they see there's

18:05

no food, and that's when they

18:08

call Child Protective Services and put

18:10

your kids in foster care, because

18:12

you couldn't get the paperwork right.

18:14

Whereas I can tell you from

18:16

experience that getting that home mortgage

18:19

interest deduction was, well, there's this,

18:21

this number that my bank sent

18:23

me, and I plug that into

18:26

one line on my tax return.

18:28

Right, right. That is

18:31

exactly how different it

18:33

is. And everything

18:36

that you just talk about is worse if

18:38

you're a person of color, if you're

18:40

African American than if you are white,

18:42

right. So all these

18:44

referral rates are going to be worse

18:49

if you're black or brown and American than if you're

18:51

white, right, even if you're white and poor,

18:53

although the experience of being white and poor

18:55

is quite awful as well. And

18:58

you know, I think talking about race

19:00

for a moment, a

19:02

story about this that is even

19:05

more extreme, but happened

19:08

in California, because

19:10

in around 2007,

19:13

as prices in white suburbs

19:15

started to drop for housing,

19:18

African American families with section eight

19:20

vouchers, which are housing vouchers that

19:22

are mobile, you can go and use

19:25

the subsidy to rent an apartment as opposed

19:27

to public housing where you're living

19:29

where the subsidy is. African

19:32

American families started to rent

19:35

houses in white communities outside

19:37

of Los Angeles, and

19:40

the police departments formed

19:42

section eight task forces

19:44

that included both

19:47

at times police, juvenile

19:49

justice and child welfare

19:52

officials to police black

19:54

section eight families, trying

19:57

to get their benefits taken

19:59

away. But they were

20:01

going in and inspecting those

20:03

households with police forces. So

20:06

the amount of criminalization and

20:09

policing of the experience

20:11

of poverty that's connected to

20:13

benefit receipts is intimately

20:16

tied to our history

20:18

of racial subordination and our ongoing

20:20

practices of racial subordination. So

20:23

in this case, our public

20:25

support and care systems and

20:27

our penal systems and criminal

20:30

justice systems are very much alike in

20:34

that they are applied unevenly

20:36

based on race. Yes,

20:38

absolutely. That is shocking.

20:40

This is terrible. Is it?

20:42

Is this, Nick? Is it shocking? I

20:44

mean, it's terrible, but does it actually

20:46

surprise you? No, no, of course not. It's just

20:49

like you just hear about this stuff and you're

20:51

just like, boy. Yeah. Well,

20:53

this gets to something and it's a little bit

20:55

of a sore point on

20:58

our podcast because

21:01

we're not necessarily,

21:05

we are, I'm going to bring up the

21:07

UBI, those three

21:09

letters, Nick, which we

21:11

have not overt, we're skeptics.

21:14

We've been UBI

21:16

skeptics, though I have to

21:18

say that the pandemic relief

21:21

over the past year and a half and

21:23

this expanded child tax credit

21:27

is making me less skeptical. Is

21:31

the child tax credit like a first

21:33

step towards the universal basic income? I

21:36

fear to talk about the UBI with the two

21:38

of you, frankly. But

21:41

so let me say for

21:43

me, when it comes to the UBI, the

21:45

devil's in the details as frankly

21:48

the devil is in the details as to

21:51

child allowances. Because

21:54

when you say to me, we're

21:56

going to build cash

21:58

support on top of

22:00

our pre-existing safety nets, we're going

22:02

to give folks cash and hopefully

22:04

our safety net won't have as

22:06

much work to do because we're going

22:08

to raise the income and prospects of

22:12

families through some

22:15

sort of a universal benefit. Then

22:18

I'm okay with that. In

22:20

fact, I can be enthusiastic. But

22:22

when we start saying like, oh, we'll

22:25

just take all the money that we

22:27

spend on food stamps and Medicaid and

22:29

homeless assistance and mental health and God

22:31

only knows what and we'll all drop

22:34

it into UBI and cross our fingers,

22:36

then I'm very worried. I

22:39

think we always need a safety net. I

22:42

think that there will always be

22:45

folks who are in crisis in some way.

22:48

And for us to abandon

22:50

that safety

22:53

net is

22:55

a mistake in the

22:57

sort of absent politics. I think that's

22:59

a mistake. And I also

23:02

think a UBI is a

23:04

harder sell than a

23:06

child benefit because

23:09

it's not about kids, right? Then we're

23:11

talking about single adults. But I do think

23:14

we are in a very interesting

23:16

moment post-pandemic benefits. I

23:18

think as the ACA benefits, the

23:20

Affordable Care Act benefits became clearer.

23:23

And as people started to think about what

23:25

it might mean to lose those deeply

23:28

convoluted but still quasi-universal

23:30

benefits. And as

23:32

people experience the government doing something

23:34

good through the pandemic, right,

23:36

that cash actually helped and it

23:39

was visibly from the government that

23:41

it came and the CTC, we

23:45

might be entering a world where people can

23:47

imagine that government can be good and

23:49

can support. That's good news. You

23:52

know, just to refresh your memory, there's

23:54

a couple of reasons why we're not

23:56

big UBI fans. The first is that

24:00

there's a lot of evidence to suggest

24:03

that things like the

24:05

EITC are mostly

24:08

subsidies, not for the people who get them,

24:11

but for the companies who employ them at

24:13

low wages. That

24:15

these benefits provide effectively

24:18

an excuse for companies to

24:20

pay people less

24:22

than they need to

24:25

get by without benefits. There

24:27

is no earthly reason why

24:29

every company in America

24:31

can't pay people enough to not

24:34

need public benefits. They just prefer

24:36

not to, and we have built

24:38

both a culture and a policy

24:40

framework that supports that exploitive

24:42

behavior. You could

24:45

just make it all go away with the stroke

24:47

of a pen. You could just raise the minimum

24:49

wage to a level that required companies

24:51

to pay people enough to get by without

24:53

food stamps, and then their need

24:55

for those things would go away.

24:58

There'd be a bunch of sad

25:00

people on Wall Street, but we

25:02

would get by that. That's the

25:04

thing about the economy, is that it could

25:06

pay people enough, it just chooses not to.

25:10

These programs effectively, they're just an

25:12

excuse not to do the right

25:14

thing. At the same

25:16

time, I think the Child Tax Credit is

25:18

a really great idea.

25:20

I think we're in violent

25:23

agreement with you that it's

25:25

a positive, and that

25:28

the universality of it is its best

25:30

feature. Effectively, everybody

25:32

gets it, or most people get it,

25:34

and it benefits people

25:36

a lot. If that's the

25:38

way we get to an

25:41

economy that doesn't

25:43

take such huge advantage of

25:45

poor people and vulnerable people,

25:47

well then, we're all for it.

25:50

That's the complication, right?

25:53

That example we were talking about, it

25:56

is utterly fathomable in America to

25:59

do it. horrible things in

26:01

our government programs to poor

26:03

people and it is utterly unfathomable in

26:05

our in the American

26:07

context to do the same thing to rich

26:09

people. Right. So in what Derrick Bell calls

26:12

interest convergence you kind of

26:14

have to give the benefits

26:16

to people up the income

26:18

scale in order

26:20

to politically justify it being

26:23

administered in a way that is

26:25

as kind and generous as the CTC is

26:29

for all but those four million or so fans.

26:31

Yeah I do love the idea

26:33

of drug testing every single person

26:36

who gets the mortgage interest deduction.

26:39

You and me both. I've got

26:41

no traction on this idea though.

26:43

Fantastic idea. You know and have

26:45

somebody come to your house and

26:47

look around and make sure you're

26:49

not doing anything bad. And

26:52

by the way they're gonna arrest you if your kids skip

26:55

school as a condition of the benefit to.

26:57

Yeah. For fun. All

26:59

that. All that. Yeah. Do you

27:01

think we have a shot at making it permanent?

27:04

So I'm not a political

27:06

academic right. I'm not right.

27:09

I don't study politics in that

27:11

way. So now you're getting Wendy's

27:14

lay opinion as to that question

27:16

but I do think pandemic

27:19

related benefits

27:22

have changed the

27:24

conversation. I think

27:26

people have experienced government

27:29

giving them money

27:32

that helps them to live

27:35

a little bit better. And

27:37

I also think that much to

27:39

the chagrin of Republicans something

27:42

like the Affordable Care Act has

27:45

done that work as well. The

27:47

Affordable Care Act was and

27:50

remains incredibly bureaucratically

27:52

complicated. So it's

27:54

less clear but nevertheless lots of people benefit

27:56

from it and when folks started to make

27:59

noise about taking it away. All of

28:01

a sudden that wasn't really popular. So

28:03

I think we are making progress on

28:07

this idea that base level benefit

28:09

can make a difference in people's lives. And

28:12

I think it'll be popular. And I think

28:14

they're super smart to be doing it in

28:16

such a visible way. Yeah. Right. The letter

28:18

from Joe Biden, right? People in our know

28:20

they're going to get it and people don't

28:22

like it when you take things away. It's

28:24

like social security. So I've got my

28:26

fingers crossed and I have some tea leaves that are

28:29

making me happy is what I would say. If

28:31

it was you, what policies would you pair

28:34

with the child tax credit in

28:36

the future to create a more

28:38

comprehensive approach to child and family

28:40

welfare? I think we

28:42

need a safety net. There

28:44

are very few programs I would do away

28:46

with. I think

28:48

we need a series of universal

28:51

benefits. The child tax

28:53

credit is a form of child

28:55

allowance. That's fantastic. I think we

28:57

need subsidized high quality child care.

28:59

I think we need universal pre-K.

29:02

We need universal health care. In

29:04

saying all this, I'm leaving aside all

29:06

the sort of labor market side interventions.

29:09

I'll leave that to you guys to

29:11

have a wish list of. I'm

29:13

really intrigued by programs like Baby Bonds

29:16

because I think they take a chunk

29:18

out of wealth inequality in an interesting

29:20

way. But what I

29:23

want to say is that I

29:25

don't care just about programs

29:29

of support and how much they're worth. Although

29:31

I care a heck of a lot about

29:33

that. But I really care about how we

29:35

administer it. I

29:38

really care that we do it

29:40

in a way that's autonomy enhancing,

29:42

that's respectful, that's easy, that promotes

29:45

the ability of individuals to

29:48

manage their own priorities and decide what

29:50

they need to spend their money on.

29:54

More structurally, I Think

29:56

we need to vastly grow

29:58

systems of support. Shrink

30:00

systems of punishment and

30:03

crucially crucially crucially, each

30:05

separate. Systems. Of support

30:07

or care from systems of

30:09

punishment in a poor people

30:11

are not stupid. They know

30:14

that accessing support makes them

30:16

vulnerable to punishment because it

30:18

does. So we

30:20

need to restructure those systems

30:23

so that one isn't linked

30:25

to the other so you

30:27

don't have to make a

30:29

choice between getting basic support

30:32

that you need. A I'd.

30:36

Say. Thing: the possibility of child welfare

30:38

intervention or prosecutor said. So I want

30:40

all those benefits and I want us

30:43

to. Really? Grow care

30:45

and separate care for punishment. Of

30:48

any lowery have an excellent piece

30:50

and blue Planet come with. She

30:52

describes our current benefits system in

30:54

the effort to navigate. It is

30:56

of tax of but I think

30:58

what you add to that conversation.

31:00

To. Lot of people don't think about

31:02

his says help soon. it is.

31:05

The current benefit system is the

31:07

way it's administered right now. It's

31:09

you know, inhumane and a sense

31:11

that the programs that are supposed

31:13

to be humane and up dehumanizing

31:15

people in a way that just.

31:18

Even. If even if it was a

31:20

fish in this is not it's it's

31:22

just not the way to do this.

31:24

Yeah, definitely moral perspective school. They I wanted

31:26

to go back to the Annie Lowrey point

31:28

because I totally agree with you about what

31:31

what we've been talking about and what I

31:33

study adds. But I think my scholarship add

31:35

one more thing because. When. I

31:37

talk about criminalization of the system.

31:40

right? It's not only

31:42

that the experience

31:44

punitive and horrible,

31:46

it's the exposure.

31:49

Yeah, a plan. Ronettes. right?

31:51

right? So with. another thing and

31:53

this is when were talking about i bought gray one

31:55

of the the topic of the bucher the case of

31:57

the in the bug is about pregnant

32:00

women who were prosecuted for

32:02

fetal assault. And so

32:04

those women for crossing, what's

32:06

fetal assault in utero

32:09

drug exposure. Oh, okay. So

32:11

they were prosecuted for fetal assault. So

32:13

these folks go to a

32:15

healthcare provider to a hospital

32:18

and low and behold, the

32:20

statements they made to nurses,

32:23

to doctors in the

32:25

hospital end up in

32:27

the criminal complaint against them. So

32:30

I am going seeking healthcare.

32:33

Right. And the very

32:35

information I disclose to

32:38

this purportedly trusted healthcare

32:40

provider is being used to prosecute

32:42

me and to take away my

32:44

children. So there's

32:47

a time tax, there's a humiliation,

32:50

there's, there's sort of punishment systems

32:52

in the sense of it's a

32:54

horrible stigmatizing, miserable

32:57

experience, but it's also

32:59

like actually dangerous.

33:03

I'm just a happy, good news. Yeah. I

33:05

have, you know, it's not like we

33:08

don't know in general how horrible our

33:10

system is, but not having gone through

33:13

it ourselves. Yeah. You

33:16

can't know the particulars. And of

33:18

course that's the, that's a particularly

33:20

terrible example because of course, as

33:24

a pregnant mother, you want

33:26

to tell the doctors and nurses

33:28

the truth about your health in

33:30

the interest of the baby. That's

33:33

what you, that's what you want to be honest

33:35

with your doctor. And

33:37

we totally, and then

33:39

we prosecute you for it, for doing the right

33:41

thing for the baby. Right. And

33:43

we want you to tell your doctor that, right? Like

33:45

we want you, right? That's what HIPAA is supposed

33:47

to do. But for a variety

33:50

of complicated legal reasons, and not so

33:52

legal reasons, that's not what happened. So

33:54

I guess the takeaway is child

33:57

tax credit, great, a

33:59

lot more work to do. I think that's

34:01

a fair takeaway. I love it. Final

34:04

question, Nick. Yeah. So Wendy, why

34:06

do you do this work? So

34:08

I couldn't tell you a sort of

34:11

like post Holocaust immigrant Jewish family

34:14

story, but I won't go that

34:16

far back. But that's

34:18

all of us. Yeah, that's all I figured

34:20

with your name. But,

34:22

but, you know, I graduated

34:24

from a fancy college, went to

34:26

work in a women's shelter, saw

34:29

all kinds of things that I

34:31

had no idea were true. Some of

34:33

the things we're talking about. So again, to law

34:35

school. And I graduated from law school

34:37

in May of 1996. In

34:40

August of 1996, Bill

34:42

Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility

34:44

Act and eliminates welfare. And

34:47

in September, I started the Legal Aid

34:49

Society in Brooklyn,

34:52

working, doing eviction defense. And

34:55

between that day and today, 25 years

34:58

later, for about

35:00

10 years as a practicing lawyer, and

35:02

for the rest of the time as a

35:05

law professor teaching in a legal clinic

35:07

setting, I've stood next to clients who

35:10

have experienced these systems. And that's been a

35:12

great privilege in my life. But

35:15

what I've seen is what

35:17

we've been talking about. And it became very clear

35:19

to me that this is how it works very

35:22

early on in my career. So

35:24

when I became an academic and thought

35:26

about what I wanted to spend my

35:28

time researching, writing about telling that story

35:30

seemed like a good use

35:32

of my fairly wonky skills. Yeah,

35:35

it's an amazing story. And

35:37

it's an amazing fact

35:40

that because powerful

35:42

people are completely

35:44

insulated from the reality of

35:47

these systems, that they're

35:49

just invisible. Right? I

35:53

mean, they just, on

35:55

paper, I'm sure they seemed sensible

35:57

to someone at the time. But

36:01

because virtually

36:03

no one in our political system

36:06

or in our power structure has

36:08

ever had to fight through this

36:11

nonsense, it

36:13

just remains invisible and ignored and

36:17

frankly supported. Yeah. Right.

36:20

Wow. It also serves lots of people's

36:22

interest to do this. Yeah, of course it does. Right.

36:25

I am not a believer that this stuff

36:27

happens by accident. I think systems function the

36:29

way they're supposed to. Yeah. And

36:32

that's a sad fact about what we think about poor people

36:34

and what we think about race in this country. Yeah.

36:38

Well, there you have it. This is fun, you guys. Thank you so

36:40

much. I really enjoyed it. Yeah, absolutely

36:42

fantastic conversation. Thank you. Thank you so

36:45

much for doing it. And

36:47

for sure, we'd love to have you back when

36:49

your book comes out. You are. Thank you. Okay.

36:52

Bye. My

36:58

name is Lupe Mendoza. I live

37:00

in Walla Walla Washington. I

37:02

am a single mother to five boys. Four

37:05

of them currently still live at

37:08

home, the oldest 21 and the

37:10

youngest eight for work. I am

37:12

a family support specialist with the

37:15

E-Cap preschool program, a

37:18

state funded preschool program for

37:20

kiddos ages three and four, and it

37:22

is an income based program. I

37:25

work with a case load of

37:27

40 families when my program is

37:29

fully enrolled. I help navigate families

37:32

to any type of resource that

37:34

we have in the community, and

37:36

that can be for electric health,

37:38

rent health, food bank, getting

37:41

pampers, hygiene stuff, you

37:43

name it. What it

37:45

was like for my family when the pandemic first hit.

37:49

It was complete shambles and chaos, trying

37:52

to navigate three different grades and

37:54

sitting down and helping them do

37:56

their work was extremely hard.

38:00

literally I would work my full day on a

38:03

computer at the table, have my kiddos doing their

38:05

school online, and then I would

38:07

sit down and try to help them. Not

38:10

only that, just mentally exhausting

38:12

for myself as a single parent.

38:14

I do have an amazing support

38:17

group, but it was really hard. So

38:19

during the pandemic, my household

38:22

changes really skyrocketed.

38:25

My grocery bill, which

38:27

it normally averages out with,

38:30

you know, to anywhere from $400 to $500 a month, because

38:32

I have boys in the eating

38:34

out of house and home. That

38:36

nearly tripled. There was some

38:38

months that I did have to say, I

38:40

can't pay this bill because we need

38:42

food. I mean, it literally felt

38:45

like we had 20 lunches, 20

38:47

dinners, and then in between there, there was

38:50

like 90 snacks a day. It was constantly

38:52

a battle. And you know, when I'm in

38:54

the midst of working, yes, I'm

38:56

home, but it was still hard to navigate, like,

38:58

no, you can't go to the kitchen. And yes,

39:01

we had rules. Yes, there was

39:03

boundaries, but there are boys. They

39:05

know how to sneak stuff. Our electric

39:08

bill doubled because now there

39:10

is five of us full

39:12

time on computers, eight

39:15

hours a day, which that was not,

39:17

you know, there before the electric used to,

39:19

everything was shut off when we were gone

39:21

during the day. The heat bill,

39:23

I mean, all my bills went up just

39:25

because we were using them twice as much.

39:28

The way I made up the difference and as

39:30

my job, I have to know every single resource.

39:33

So I knew the resources and I knew that

39:35

there was like, you know, they couldn't cut off

39:37

my electric bill or, you know,

39:39

my gas if I needed it. So

39:41

I would have to make that choice

39:43

to sacrifice. Well, do I not

39:46

pay that bill this month and

39:49

put more food and, you know, into the home

39:52

or do I not and then end up using a

39:54

resource as far as going to the food bank. So

39:57

I would choose to not pay

39:59

that bill one month. and be able to

40:01

put that extra food, you know, in

40:03

the home to have. That is

40:05

what worked. That is how I had

40:07

to manage and to keep stability and

40:09

things the same and not allow my

40:12

kids to know that we were

40:14

struggling or that it was difficult

40:16

for us. I needed to

40:18

keep normalcy for them. When I

40:20

first heard I was receiving the child tax credit,

40:22

it was a sigh of relief for me because

40:24

it was in the middle of having to move

40:28

and my finances were already tight

40:30

as it is because

40:32

as I'm juggling the bills, I'm still playing

40:34

catch up. I was like, Oh, okay. Like

40:37

that is going to help with

40:39

the gas back and forth. That is going to help

40:41

me with the U-Haul rental. Like now I can afford

40:43

it. And I, you know, didn't have to ask my

40:45

mom to borrow the money. Um,

40:47

cause that was like my last resort. So

40:50

it was a sigh of relief

40:52

for me, just a little breather. Um,

40:54

so half the money went to moving

40:57

expenses. And then the other half I

41:00

bought my two younger boys, um,

41:02

more clothing because they just

41:04

obviously expanded both sideways and

41:06

long ways and they

41:09

had outgrown all their clothes. So we had

41:11

no choice to, but to, you know, send

41:13

that extra money. I didn't want to

41:15

count on it. Like I didn't want to say, Oh, I have

41:17

the $750 coming. Like

41:20

that is going to make things easier for me.

41:22

And like it came through when I, you know,

41:24

when we really needed it the most, I

41:26

would explain the importance of the tab, the

41:28

expanded child tax credit to somebody is that

41:31

it comes when you least expect it. And it comes

41:33

when you need it the most. And

41:35

that can look very different for every family

41:37

situation. And it may be just that little

41:40

bit that you need to top off whatever

41:42

bill you have. Or, you know,

41:44

it may even be a tiny little trip that you

41:47

have not been able to take all year or all

41:49

summer. That credit is just,

41:51

it is really important because it's

41:53

very individual for every family. Our

41:56

needs look totally different. It's

41:58

from putting that extra. it on your

42:00

table to pay in that extra bill and

42:03

you know it can look many many different

42:05

ways but it is

42:07

a huge stress reliever. I

42:10

always have anxiety, I always have stress

42:12

but it is just that

42:14

extra like breather that I can take. I

42:23

honestly you know I feel like I'm

42:25

pretty well acquainted with

42:27

the time tax stuff that Annie

42:29

Lowry talks about in her Atlantic

42:32

article because as I may have

42:34

mentioned on the podcast before you

42:36

know one of the things that

42:38

my family does that my wife

42:40

mostly is she assists she directly

42:42

assists that you know a low

42:44

income family and sort of as

42:46

a mentor to the mom and

42:49

helps her navigate these systems and

42:52

they are horrendous. I

42:54

mean it's just astonishing how hard

42:56

it is to be

42:58

poor, right? How difficult

43:01

the systems are, how contradictory,

43:04

difficult to navigate, you

43:06

know you get a system one of these

43:08

things in place and then God forbid you

43:10

get a job and they take them all away. I mean

43:13

the whole thing is just a mess but I had never

43:15

really been exposed to the whole

43:18

criminalization part of it,

43:20

right? These legal

43:23

hurdles that are put in place

43:25

that put you in jeopardy for

43:28

frankly doing things that either

43:31

your poverty makes

43:34

necessary, right? That you know like not

43:36

having enough food around for your kids

43:38

which is one of the consequences of

43:41

poverty or doing

43:43

things that everyone else in the society

43:45

does with impunity like smoking

43:47

pot or whatever it is or

43:50

drinking or you know doing the

43:52

sort of things that rich

43:55

people do all the time and don't

43:57

ever get pressed on. So that was

43:59

That was really interesting and really

44:02

worth understanding better. It's

44:04

very easy for a streak

44:06

of bad luck to turn

44:08

into suddenly finding

44:11

yourself food insecure

44:13

or housing insecure or homeless.

44:17

And that's why it was so important

44:20

during COVID that we

44:22

passed these relief packages

44:25

that were rather extraordinary

44:28

in terms of the past 40, 50, 60

44:31

years, but which prevented

44:33

so much misery, not to

44:35

mention kept the economy afloat.

44:38

Absolutely. I mean, to be

44:40

clear, the Child Tax Credit is a

44:42

great victory for most families and a

44:46

great victory for government

44:48

and is,

44:51

you know, cause to celebrate. And

44:53

I think we all need to work hard to ensure

44:56

that it continues, that it becomes a

44:58

permanent benefit for families, which I

45:01

think would make a big difference to a huge

45:03

number of people. If

45:11

you like the show, make sure to subscribe, rate, and

45:13

review us wherever you get your podcasts.

45:16

Find us on Twitter and Facebook at Civic Action

45:18

and Nick Hanauer. Also, our writing

45:20

on Medium at Civic Skunk Works and peek

45:23

behind the podcast scenes on Instagram at Pitchfork

45:25

Economics. As always from our team

45:27

at Civic Ventures, thanks for listening. See

45:30

you next week.