Throughout 2022, lower-income households in the U.S. have faced complex economic challenges, predominantly due to the soaring prices of essential goods and services. According to a Gallup survey conducted in August 2022, about a quarter of lower-income households (annual income below $48,000) reported severe financial hardship. Every year, eligible lower-income working parents, after filing their taxes, start receiving tax refunds (usually in late February) from multiple programs. Existing literature suggests that lower-income working parents find momentary relief from financial struggles in the months following tax credit reception. As the total eligibility depends on the number of dependent children, a relevant question is: does tax credit eligibility have a different relationship with the financial hardship experienced by households with differing numbers of dependent children? This paper, using data from the Household Pulse Survey (HPS), investigates the extent to which financial hardship reported by households with different numbers of dependent children (0, 1, 2, 3, or more) changed in the six post-tax-credit-disbursement months in 2022 (March 2022 – September 2022) compared to the six pre-tax-credit-disbursement months (September 2021 – February 2022).

Accepted Oral Presentation