Expansion of Child Tax Credits and Mental Health of Parents With Low Income in 2021

Importance: The 2021 Child Tax Credit (CTC) expansion, as part of the American Rescue Plan Act, offered financial relief through generous monthly tax benefits to families with children amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In light of heightened concerns about mental health during the pandemic, the expanded CTC may have alleviated parental mental health challenges, especially within families with low income.

Objective: To investigate the association between the 2021 CTC expansion and mental health among parents with low income as measured by depression and anxiety symptoms.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This repeated cross-sectional study used data from the Household Pulse Survey covering April 14, 2021, to January 10, 2022, in the US. A difference-in-difference-in-differences estimator combined with propensity score matching was used to estimate the association of the expanded CTC with mental health symptoms among households with income less than $35 000.

Exposure: The monthly payment of expanded CTC from July 15 to December 15, 2021.

Main Outcomes And Measures: Parental mental health was measured by analyzing depression and anxiety symptoms using logistic regression.

Results: The weighted sample comprised 546 366 adults (mean [SD] age, 43.02 [14.54] years; 52.9% female). The most common education level was high school or less (36.0%), the highest frequency of household income distribution was $50 000 to $74 999 (16.1%), and the majority of the sample was employed (67.3%). The weighted mean (SD) number of children in the household was 0.92 (1.18). For the full sample, receiving expanded CTC benefits was associated with lower odds of experiencing anxiety symptoms (odds ratio, 0.730; 95% CI, 0.598-0.890). Subgroup analyses indicated that the positive associations of the policy with anxiety symptoms were particularly pronounced among the female, working-age (17-60 years), non-Hispanic White, and higher education groups. However, the policy expansion had no association with depression.

Conclusions And Relevance: These findings may provide valuable evidence for policy makers to consider when deliberating on the possibility of making the CTC expansion permanent or transforming it into a universal program.