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The Worker Relief & Credit Reform Act (WRCR) modernizes the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), reaching more workers and expanding the definition of work to make unpaid family caregivers and low-income students eligible for EITC for the first time. https://gwenmoore.house.gov/uploadedfiles/117th_congress_-_wrcr_act_description_6.15.21.pdf

At a press conference in Milwaukee WI on July 23, 2021, Congresswoman Gwen Moore reintroduced a strengthened Worker Relief and Credit Reform (WRCR) Act (H.R. 4665). She said: “As families work to recover from the COVID health crisis and related economic downturn, WRCR could provide meaningful support that lifts millions of Americans out of poverty, reaches low-income students, and recognizes the hard, unpaid work that caregivers provide each day.”

Our multi-racial network of mothers & other unwaged caregivers welcomes this historic legislation and urges all to endorse the Worker Relief and Credit Reform Act. When WRCR was first introduced in 2019, we helped to gather support for it: over seventy organizations signed on (see below and at https://electionaction4caregivers.medium.com/worker-relief-and-credit-reform-act-hr5271-and-american-family-act-s690-endorsers-c108a1833744). Read our full press statement: https://globalwomenstrike.net/press-statement-mothers-and-others-welcome-the-re-introduction-of-worker-relief-credit-reform-act/.  

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WORKER RELIEF AND CREDIT REFORM ACT (WRCR), HR 4665

✓ Treats caregiving as work. Provides payments in the form of tax credits (Earned Income Tax Credit/EITC) to unpaid family caregivers of children under 12 and/or of an aging or disabled partner or relative.

✓ Treats higher education as work. Tax credit payments to low-income college students: more than 1 in 3 are food insecure and many on the verge of homelessness.

✓ Both unpaid caregivers and students would qualify for the maximum Earned Income Tax Credit.

✓ Increases the age range: eligibility starts at age 18 and extends to employed people older than 65.

✓ Makes the credit fully refundable: you don’t need to have a waged job or income, or have to pay taxes to get it.

✓ You can get this credit on top of other benefits, such as TANF, SNAP, SSI, Child Tax Credits.

✓ Money for caregivers and low-income students: WRCR calls for up to $4,000 for a single filer, $8,000 for married filers.

✓ Gives the option of getting the payment monthly: but at a reduced 75%, the remainder of which would be available at tax filing.

✓ Decreases poverty: using current poverty measures it would benefit nearly half of people in the US (154 million), and cut the poverty rate by one-third. (The Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival challenges as too narrow the current poverty measurements.)