WASHINGTON — Congresswoman Gwen Moore, D-Milwaukee, joined with advocates Wednesday to make a new pitch for expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, which helps 23 million low-to-moderate income taxpayers.
“As we mark the 50th birthday of the Earned Income Tax Credit, I think it's time to modernize it,” Moore said.
She is reintroducing the Worker Relief and Credit Reform Act, which would expand the tax credit, by decreasing the eligibility age for workers without children from 25 to 18, and removing the eligibility upper-age limit of 65 years. It also would also make unpaid caregivers and college students eligible for the first time.
“Unpaid caregivers perform more than $1 trillion worth of essential care to loved ones every year,” Moore said. “And so the Worker Act ensures that caregivers get at least some of the support that they deserve.”
According to the Internal Revenue Service, in 2023, there were 305,000 Earned Income Tax Credit claims in Wisconsin, which resulted in $762 million of tax returns. Eligible Wisconsinites received an average of $2497.
“This historic bill would have established that as a mother, I am a worker, and this is money we have earned and deserve,” said Pat Albright, an advocate at the press conference Wednesday.
Albright, a former welfare recipient originally from Milwaukee, said the bill would have made a huge difference to her and her son, who is now 33.
“My son was too often deprived of what he wanted, but I couldn't afford, embarrassed that we needed to shop at the thrift store, and disappointed that he had a mother who couldn't do better for him,” Albright said.
The legislation failed to pass in the last Congress. And with Republicans controlling the House, Senate and White House, it is unlikely to pass this year. But it gives Democrats an opportunity to draw a contrast with some of President Donald Trump’s tax cut plans, which Democrats say would disproportionately help higher income Americans. Moore said Republicans have supported the Earned Income Tax Credit in the past.
“This is a bill, as I pointed out, that was signed into law by a Republican president,” she said. “This has lived for 50 years on a bipartisan basis because it's been so effective.”
Moore said a cost estimate for the legislation is in the works, but that it would be far less than the trillions of dollars it would cost to extend the tax cuts from President Trump’s first term that expire this year.
