It Did Not Take Matt Bruenig and Jon White Two Days to Make a Good Child Tax Credit Website

I am often voyaging into areas where I am not an expert, and I often get things wrong or overlook subtleties, so it is always nice when the universe grants me the higher ground, so to put it, letting me be the expert pointing out some confusion in the work of a holidaying writer. (The world would undoubtedly be a better place if every conversation, and perhaps even every entry into a journal or diary, was tenderly guarded by an expert in its subject matter.) The occasion this time was my reading a blog post by Matt Bruenig about the U.S. Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) Child Tax Credit (CTC) sign-up website for people who haven’t filed a tax report.

I want to be careful here, because Bruenig is, I think, an excellent and insightful writer and policy analyst, as is shown, for example, in his previous posts on the CTC. I agree with most of what is written in this latest post, too. But I think he underestimates the amount of work that goes into a website like the one he is criticising, and I think a more accurate picture will blunt the force of his critique.

Earlier this year, the Biden administration signed into a law a reform of the Child Tax Credit that increased benefit amounts from $2,000 per year to $3,000 per year, made the payments available monthly, and made the poorest families in the country eligible for the program. In their messaging, the administration mostly touted the latter reform, claiming that it would cut child poverty in half.

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