I urge Sen. Susan Collins to support the fully refundable expanded child tax credit.

Since March, nearly 250,000 Maine children have been receiving $250 to $300 every month.

Sen. Collins has long supported the child tax credit, a proven poverty-reduction tool. Yet she wants to tie it to work requirements, thereby taking this assistance away from the children who need it most: those whose parents earn little or no income.

I applaud Sen. Collins’ creative “two-generation” approach to overcoming obstacles to work. But I believe work requirements are misplaced when applied to the child tax credit.

The child tax credit invests in children, because Americans believe in the extraordinary potential of every child, regardless of their circumstances. Children don’t work. Tying children’s well-being to their parents’ work status betrays every child’s fundamental worth and dignity. Work requirements don’t belong here.

A child tax credit work requirement will create an onerous bureaucracy. Families will need to prove that they qualify for the credit every month. Mainers who most need assistance – rural families, unhoused families, immigrant families, parents working long hours – will be left out when they can’t comply with complicated bureaucratic requirements. Work requirements just don’t belong here.

Sen. Collins believes in the dignity of work, and I agree that everyone yearns to make a meaningful contribution to their community. However, to reward or punish children based on their parents’ work demeans them. True dignity lies in empowering every child to grow up without the burden of poverty, and the fully refundable expanded child tax credit is doing exactly that.

Eden Grace

Ocean Park