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Washington, D.C.- April 24, 2025, Representatives Danny K. Davis (D-IL), Suzan DelBene (D-WA), and Linda Sánchez (D-CA) introduced the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit Enhancement Act to permanently expand the child care tax credit to raise the maximum credit from $1,050 to $4,000 for 1 child and from $2,100 to $8,000 for 2 or more children.  This bill is led by Senators Tina Smith (D-MN), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Patty Murray (D-WA) in the Senate. The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) is the only tax credit that helps working parents offset the rising cost of child care.  In 2021, Democrats successfully enhanced both the CDCTC and the Child Tax Credit because both credits are essential to support parents’ ability to provide for their families.  While 100% of the CDCTC reimburses parents for actual child care costs paid to work, parents mostly use the Child Tax Credit to defray other significant costs of caring for a child, such as food, rent, and clothing. Unfortunately, as currently structured, the CDCTC fails to meet the needs of tens of millions of working families. Very few families receive meaningful benefit from the credit due to the extremely low phase-out level of $15,000, the low expense limits, the non-refundable nature, and the loss of benefit due to inflation.  For example, the Tax Policy Center estimates that only 13% of families with children claimed the CDCTC in 2022.  The Child Care and Dependent Credit Enhancement Act will increase the maximum credit amount to $4,000 per child up to $8,000 for two or more children, expand eligibility to low-income families, make the credit available to married couples who file separately due to high student loan debt, and retain the credit’s value over time by indexing it to inflation. Compared to 2019, low-income working parents quadrupled their credit received in 2021.

Washington, D.C. - On Thursday, April 10, 2025, Representatives Danny K. Davis (D-IL), Blake Moore (R-UT), Gwen Moore (D-WI), Randy Feenstra (R-IA), Don Bacon (R-NE), Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-CA), and Robert Aderholt (R-AL) introduced the bipartisan, bicameral Adoption Tax Credit Refundability Act of 2025. The legislation would help children find permanent, loving families by removing income as a barrier to adoption. Senators Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) will introduce companion legislation in the Senate. The Adoption Tax Credit helps families offset some of the costs of adoption, especially for children with special needs. Currently, the tax credit disadvantages low- and middle-income families, in particular families with annual incomes between $30,000 to $50,000. Thus, the credit inadvertently creates barriers to permanency for a substantial number of families. During the Great Recession, Congress allowed families to receive the Adoption Tax Credit if the credit exceeded their tax liability recognizing that the economic hardship could prevent families from adopting or exact a heavy financial toll from families choosing adoption. The Adoption Tax Credit Refundability Act of 2025 would again make this credit refundable to remove income as a barrier to adoption to help more children join permanent, loving families.

Representative Danny K. Davis (D-IL), Representative Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), Representative Gwen Moore (D-WI), Representative Stacey E. Plaskett (D-VI), and Representative Steven Horsford (D-NV) announced the introduction of the Building Child Care for a Better Future Act (H.R. 2595) to dramatically increase guaranteed child care funding to address child care needs and create grants to enhance child care workforce, supply, quality, and access. Senators Ron Wyden and Elizabeth Warren will introduce companion legislation in the Senate. The need to rebuild a stronger, more robust and more equitable child care system is more important than ever as working families across America struggle to access affordable, quality child care. Alarmingly, Republicans are threatening to eliminate child care for 40,000 children to pay for their massive tax giveaways for the wealthiest individuals and corporations. Additionally, the mass layoffs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, including the offices at the Administration for Children and Families that administer child care and Head Start programs, will make child care even less accessible and affordable, as well as less safe. The long-term solutions in this bill complement the other Democratic bills that address the immediate child care cliff created by Republican inaction.

Today, U.S. Representatives Danny K. Davis (D-IL) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) introduced the SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act to reform the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, which has not been updated in 40 years. Currently, the program unfairly punishes lower-income seniors and people with disabilities for saving responsibly for emergencies or their futures. A companion to this bill was introduced in the U.S. Senate by Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA), alongside Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-OR). Right now, individuals with a disability or those aged 65 and older are only eligible for Supplemental Security Income if they have under $2,000 in assets. SSI’s marriage penalty restricts married couples to a total of $3,000 in financial resources to remain eligible. The bipartisan, bicameral legislation would update SSI’s asset limits for the first time since the 1980s to allow millions of Americans with disabilities to marry, work, earn, and save money without putting the benefits they rely on to live at risk.

WASHINGTON, DC— Representatives Danny K. Davis (D-IL), Judy Chu (D-CA), Gwen Moore (D-WI), Dwight Evans (D-PA), Jimmy Gomez (D-CA), and Bennie Thompson (D-MS) introduced H.R. 2108, the TANF State Expenditure Integrity Act, which would give the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) the statutory authority it needs to prevent, monitor, and penalize the intentional misuse of federal funds by contractors and other subrecipient grantees of the $16.5 billion TANF block grant. HHS is prohibited by law from issuing regulations to monitor TANF contractors and subgrant recipients and ensure that they are penalized, even for egregious misuse like what occurred recently in Mississippi. The TANF State Expenditure Integrity Act gives the HHS Secretary the ability to establish a formal system to closely monitor the use of TANF funds, ensures consistent data reporting to identify misuse, and creates a TANF Program Integrity Unit to carry out grantee monitoring. The bill would also impose a new penalty for intentional misuse of funds where the state must spend at least an equivalent amount of the misused funds in the form of cash assistance directly to families who are very low income.