Introduced in Senate · Hassan / Young
Stronger Start for Working Families Act (S. 3596)
What does S. 3596's $1 earned-income threshold do to the number of TY2027 Additional Child Tax Credit claims?
Live forecasts on this bill's candidate series — unconditional
Additional Child Tax Credit returns, TY2026
How many individual income tax returns will claim the refundable Additional Child Tax Credit for tax year 2026?
SPM child poverty rate, 2025
What will the Supplemental Poverty Measure child poverty rate be for calendar year 2025 as published by the U.S. Census Bureau?
Computed impact — PolicyEngine
Gains concentrate in the lowest income deciles (decile 1 averages +$32/yr vs +$0.30 for decile 10); Gini falls 0.02%. The annual cost declines from $1.86B to $1.53B across the window as earnings growth lifts families past the old $2,500 floor. State income-tax revenue falls about $0.35M per year — itemized separately and excluded from the federal figures above.
Reform parameters
{
"gov.irs.credits.ctc.refundable.phase_in.threshold": {
"2026-01-01.2100-12-31": 0
}
}Certification pending (prb4 re-review, 2026-07-31): the committed evidence validates against policyengine-us@1.784.3 while the Modal artifact records pe_us_version 1.764.6, and the validation path has fail-open branches — 'certified' is not yet proven at exact runtime. Figure retained as claimed-tier evidence with this caveat. Static microsim, one evidence stream with its own error bars. Anchors: PolicyEngine -$1.6B/yr on an older data build; Tax Policy Center ~$1.0B/yr.
Provisions
Section 2
Earned income threshold for the refundable child tax credit: $3,000 → $1
Section 2
Earned income threshold for the refundable child tax credit: $3,000 → $1
Under current law the refundable portion of the child tax credit (the additional child tax credit) phases in at 15 percent of earned income above a threshold — $3,000 in the permanent statute at §24(d)(1)(B)(i), overridden to $2,500 by §24(h)(6). The bill lowers the permanent threshold to $1 and strikes the $2,500 override, so the phase-in starts from the first dollar of earned income. The 15 percent phase-in rate and the refundable cap are unchanged; the change takes effect for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2025.
Quoted from the bill ▸
Section 24(d)(1)(B)(i) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by striking `$3,000'' and inserting `$1''. … Section 24(h) of such Code is amended by striking paragraph (6). … The amendments made by this section shall apply to taxable years beginning after December 31, 2025.Full section text ▸
SEC. 2. EARNED INCOME THRESHOLD FOR REFUNDABLE CHILD TAX CREDIT. (a) In General.--Section 24(d)(1)(B)(i) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by striking ``$3,000'' and inserting ``$1''. (b) Conforming Amendment.--Section 24(h) of such Code is amended by striking paragraph (6). (c) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section shall apply to taxable years beginning after December 31, 2025. <all>
Countersignable goals
Likely effects — shown regardless of the goals
Phase-in floor
Families with earned income below the current $2,500 threshold become newly eligible for a refundable credit; every family whose refundable credit is limited by the earnings formula gains up to 15 percent of $2,499 (about $375), holding the rate and cap fixed.
Filing requirement
The newly eligible population is concentrated among very-low-income households, many of whom are not currently required to file; claiming the credit requires filing a return, so realized take-up depends on filing behavior, not only on eligibility.
Unchanged parameters
The $2,200 credit amount, the refundable cap, and the 15 percent phase-in rate are untouched — the provision changes who reaches a given refundable amount at what earnings level, not the credit's ceiling.
Implementation barriers
IRS
The threshold change must land in TY2026 forms, instructions, and e-file schema for the 2027 filing season; the conforming strike of §24(h)(6) also touches guidance that currently cites the $2,500 figure.
Outreach / VITA
Reaching newly eligible non-filers is an outreach problem: the households gaining eligibility are those least connected to the filing system.
Candidate outcome metrics
IRS Statistics of Income, Individual Income Tax Returns (Publication 1304 line-item tables): number of returns claiming the additional child tax credit and total ACTC dollars, TY2027 versus prior years.
Live forecast 16.2M →Why this metric ▸
The provision operates entirely through the ACTC formula, so ACTC returns and dollars are the most direct administrative readout: if the threshold change does anything, it must appear here first. Official, first-print resolvable from a fixed IRS publication. The registered conditional pair targets TY2027, matching its policy premise. Known weakness: SOI line-item tables publish with roughly a two-year lag, so TY2027 resolves in 2029; considered the weekly Filing Season Statistics as a faster proxy and rejected it because it does not break out the ACTC line.
Census Bureau Supplemental Poverty Measure, child poverty rate — the SPM accounts for refundable credits, so a phase-in change for the lowest earners shows up here if realized take-up is material.
Live forecast 13.1% →Why this metric ▸
Selected because it is the outcome the goal actually claims (resources of the lowest-earning families) and because the SPM is already a live Thesis registry series with existing forecast cells. The conditional pair targets CY2027 so its outcome can reflect the provision's TY2027 application. Thesis commits the conservative 2028-08-01 through 2028-12-31 release window and 2028-12-31 resolve-by deadline; the registered Census announcement authenticates revised-methodology identity only and establishes neither timing value. The pair is non-exhaustive: an intermediate enacted threshold satisfies neither arm. Known weakness: attribution is noisy — a sub-$400-per-family change sits inside the SPM's year-to-year movement, so this metric is informative in the enacted-versus-unchanged-current-law pair, not as a standalone level.
No official series separates ACTC claims by earnings band at the threshold margin in a timely publication; SOI tabulations by AGI band are the closest proxy and lag by about two years.
Why this metric ▸
Recorded as a gap rather than omitted: the sharpest test of this provision would be claims among families earning under $2,500, and no official publication isolates that band on a useful timeline. Stating the missing series is part of the analysis — it is the demand signal a registry would need to close.
Conditional forecast sketches
P(IRS SOI TY2027 ACTC returns and dollars | §24(d)(1)(B)(i) threshold ≤ $1 for TY2027 vs unchanged $2,500 current-law threshold for TY2027; an intermediate enacted threshold is outside both arms)
P(Census SPM child poverty rate for CY2027 | §24(d)(1)(B)(i) threshold ≤ $1 for TY2027 vs unchanged $2,500 current-law threshold for TY2027; an intermediate enacted threshold is outside both arms)