This brief examines the impact of the Family First Act (H.R. 353), a bill introduced by Representative Blake Moore and Senator Jim Banks in the 119th Congress. The bill would significantly expand the child tax credit (CTC) while paring back other tax benefits for families, including the earned income tax credit (EITC) for families with children younger than 19, the child and dependent care credit, and head of household (HOH) filing status.
Why This Matters
Policymakers have expressed interest in expanding and simplifying tax benefits for families with children, including proposals focused on low-income and younger children. The Family First Act (FFA) would increase the CTC, especially for younger children, create a new credit for pregnant women, and double the maximum EITC for married couples without children.
To simplify taxes for families with children and reduce the overall budgetary cost of the proposal, the bill would create a new formula to calculate the EITC for families with children under 19 that would not differ based on the number of children a family has. Families with children who are 19 to 23 and full-time students or 19 and older and disabled would still be eligible for the current law credit for these older children, which provides larger benefits to families with more than one child. The bill would eliminate the child and dependent care tax credit for families with children, the credit for other dependents (those that cannot be claimed for the CTC), and HOH filing status (a filing status typically used by single parents). Lastly, the bill would limit the state and local tax deduction for people who itemize their deductions, further offsetting costs associated with the bill’s expansions.
What We Found
Of families with children, about 62 percent would see their after-tax income rise (they would receive greater tax benefits) because of the legislation while 32 percent would see their after-tax income fall (they would receive smaller tax benefits or owe more federal income tax). We estimate that for those that would see their after-tax income increase, it would increase by about $2,100 on average, while for those who would see their after-tax income fall, it would fall by about $1,700 on average.
Most of the low- and moderate-income families with children who would be worse off under this bill would be single-parent families. For many of these families, the net gain from a larger CTC would not be enough to offset the increased taxes they would owe from filing their taxes as single rather than HOH.
Overall, a larger share of families would see their after-tax income increase rather than decrease as a result of the bill. Among those who would see an increase in their after-tax income, average benefits would be greater than the average losses among people whose after-tax income would decline. The average benefit to families with children in the lowest 20 percent of the income distribution would be greater than for any other income group.
Taxpayers without children would see only a minimal benefit from the bill.
We estimate the FFA would cost about $150 billion over the 10-year budget window from FY2026 to FY2035.
How We Did It
We used the Tax Policy Center’s microsimulation model, which includes recent tax code changes enacted as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, to estimate the impact of changes in the Family First Act relative to current law baseline. More information on the model can be found here.
Additional Material
The model estimates used in the report are available at https://taxpolicycenter.org/tax-model-analysis/family-first-act-hr-353.
