The House Human Services Committee is taking a close look at the Shumlin administration’s proposal to cut to the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit and cap Reach Up benefits.
Rep. Ann Pugh, chair of the committee, said her primary concern was how children would fare if families are cut off from Reach Up or get a diminished tax credit in the mail.
The Shumlin administration has argued that its proposal to increase child-care subsidies would soften the blow for many. Doug Racine, secretary of Human Services, told the committee that for many of the affected families, access to affordable child care is their primary barrier, hence child-care subsidies would offset much of the impact of the program cuts.
Chris Curtis, an attorney with Vermont Legal Aid, offered a grimmer prediction. Families may have better access to child care, Curtis said, but this won’t mitigate the potential damage to a child if the family ends up in a shelter.
“The child has a place to go during the day, but doesn’t have a roof over their head at night. I think that’s a big problem.”
Curtis also pointed out that more people stand to lose from the cuts than stand to benefit from child-care subsidies. The Agency of Human Services estimates that another 900 families will access subsidies under the expanded program, and some families currently in the program will receive a larger subsidy than before. Meanwhile, 1,188 families will be booted from Reach Up and about 45,000 people will see their EITC decline by about 15 percent.
Part of the problem is that the Agency of Human Services doesn’t know who exactly would fall through the cracks — in other words, which families will lose Reach Up assistance or see a reduction in the EITC without benefiting from improved access to child care.
On Thursday, another party entered the fray to offer their perspective to lawmakers — recipients of both programs.
“You could throw all the child-care money you want at me but when there are no slots it doesn’t matter,” a former Reach Up beneficiary who now works as a temporary assistant case manager for the program, told the committee.
“Daycare was almost impossible for me to find,” another woman on Reach Up told the committee. After her first year in the program, she secured slots for her three children, but two years later, she still hasn’t found work. She said transportation and the scarcity of jobs are her primary challenges now. Asked after the testimony how she would fare if her Reach Up assistance stopped, she replied that it would be devastating, and, among other things, cause her to lose her home.
