Let’s turn our focus to children

To the editor:

I’ve lived in Riverdale for nearly five years now. And I’ve always lived in the Bronx. 

I’m interested in what our congressional district will look like in a few weeks on Jan. 1. The 15th Congressional District will run from the very northwest corner of the Bronx through the central Bronx to Port Morris — from the Hudson River to the Bronx Kill.  Additionally, the entire Bronx remains the poorest urban county in the United States.

Based on this information, I suggest to the editor and to the readers of The Riverdale Press that we should all support the expanded Child Tax Credit, and urge all our federal representatives to do so as well. It will benefit countless of our new congressional district peers farther south. And, according to the ChildTaxCredit.gov website, in 2021, many closer neighbors can benefit as well. 

Married couples filing jointly with incomes of $150,000 or less, single heads of households with incomes of $112,500 or less, were all eligible previously.

Research by Columbia University has shown that raising the child tax credit results in long-term gains in earnings, improvement in health, longevity and infant mortality, and reductions in criminal justice and welfare interactions.

I believe — as so many in our neighborhood do — that we have a responsibility for the common good. To care for the least, the last and the lost.

Here with the Child Tax Credit, we also have a case of a common interest, a genuine solidarity across our borough.

Lois Harr