he made only about $16,000 last year because it is that children who miss out on critical tax credits that could put more of his money in his pocket. my legislation, david mentioned the working families tax relief

act would triple the size for workers without children it would expand access, make permit enhancement of the igc and dtc that will expire in 2017. expanding the child was eitc is in our legislation. it will left more than a half-million people out of poverty and will reduce the poverty for an additional 10 million, help alleviate the poverty for an additional 10 million people. for jason the right now is ineligible for even 1 dollar of dtc, the credit under my plan would mean about $600 for it. so innocent is tax further into poverty because he gets no help from earned income tax credit. we know what this means. we know with the earned income tax credit means, beyond putting money in families pockets. we know what it means, similar to the children's health insurance program. i'm introducing that legislation the next week or so.

that's been bipartisan for 20 years. in my state its 130,000 children benefit from the children's health insurance program. what that means it's not just giving parents the peace of mind of knowing their children have insurance. not just eitc and ctc getting a parent some peace of mind that they can do a few things for the children that they couldn't do. it also means better performance in schools missing fewer school days, when at school they're less likely to be sick and they may be less likely to be hungry because they have all the money in their pocket. if we care about not just these families in these neighborhoods that this society so we raise children that would have higher test scores, higher graduation rates, higher college attendance rates, and more people getting cheapies, more people going to college more people finishing

college means working more hours, higher salaries. it means we enable the cash poor the 44% of households that have less than three months worth of savings almost half of people in this country have less than three months of the savings. at whatever age they are. if they are in their 50s we know what that means for their retirement. half of the people, more or less half the people in this country to put on social security for more than half their income. if we're ever going to build wealth in this country and give people a chance young children a chance and old people a chance, earning a more secure retirement, eitc and ctc are very important. but if we fail to act, 50 million, if we fail to renew and make permanent 50 million americans could lose part of their eitc or ctc. in so many ways that's the worst kind of class warfare aimed at working families. when people that dress like me

and have good titles and get good salaries and get good government paid pensions and health care don't rise to the occasion and don't take from eitc and ctc don't expand those programs go to the chills health insurance plan, things that have been bipartisan though raise the minimum wage, things have been bipartisan in this country for most of the last 30 years, minimum wage now has a third less buying power than it did in 1968. think about what that means. it's not mostly teenagers. it's mostly people who support themselves and their families but it really is, ignoring them while we talk of lowering the corporate tax rate is the worst kind of class warfare. these workers need help out of poverty not to be taxed into it and that needs to be our mission. let me talk about one other bill, the early refund eitc. david talked about payday lending for a moment he mentioned it. there are more payday lending source in the united states today than there are combined

mcdonald's and starbucks. more payday lending stores and think about that. in upper income neighborhoods that are starbucks and mcdonald's. if you look at the whole country think of the concentration of payday lenders and moderate and low-income neighborhoods. so what happens for so many people is while the woman rose i mentioned from toledo, ohio, she depends on eitc on the check she gets in february or march or april. she depends on the check to pay down her bills, just to catch up. what is in october rose is forced to have some unforeseen problem that costs money which poor people always are more likely to have and her car breaks down educate good work because her car breaks down so she's got to go to a payday lender because she hasn't gotten

her eitc refund because that's not for four months. was just a payday lender the average payday lender, average person goes to a payday lender seven times. say get the first payday loan and you can't pay at all baxley go again and again and again and again. you end up paying 200 three hundreds and/or more. some testified up to 500% off of interest. so what you're in that downward spiral we've got to borrow money against your eitc or just borrow money to stay alive because your car is most likely to break down. 20 years ago when i lived in columbus i tutored a young man actually i meant about my age who dropped out of high school. you wanted to learn to read so he could read, get a better job. he worked as a parking attendant in a hospital. he wanted to be able to read out loud from the bible at his church. about one out of four times we would need because i had young children and i was a single

parent and on sunday nights i couldn't really leave the house because they were small. he would come to my house. about one out of four nights, every sunday night his car would break down. he just couldn't get there. my car didn't break down but i do good jobs and a decent income and i the car that was three years old or something. he had a car that was 12 years old or whatever it was. obviously i'm not preaching to you. you know the cost of of people that come it costs money to be poor. that's the reason for this event. the way this bill would work, and am hopeful that we have a real shot because i'm hopeful we can get bipartisan support as we have in the past come is to allow up to $500 early advance not paying interest on it. cost the government very little money to do this. if your car breaks down in october you can get a $500 advanced that with the main when you get your refund its $500 less of course but it can keep people out of that downward

cycle of getting a payday loan and then what all that means. so i will close with this. as you advocate around here, tell your stories. tell this story. i mean, you all are in this business. pope francis a few months ago he ex ord is a parish priest to go out and smell like a flock your -- exhorted. we do public policy in this town and we are supposed to understand the lives of a broad section of people. and we don't do that well enough. lincoln when he was president his advisers want him to stay in the white house and free the slaves and when the war, preserve the union. he said i've got to go out and get my public opinion back. it's important would want to listen to people under the stories of rows into the stories that jason and hear the stories that we can pass on to policymakers and others. i will close with this.

john lewis, who is a number of us including senator tim scott who i think that's a represented here today. cannot run the finance committee of public and isn't eitc things. we are leading the congressional delegation to go to selma to mark the 50th anniversary. i was able to take my young daughters and their back in 1998, the first time we get a congressional trip. about six of us from the house back that went and john was among them but john tells the story. when he spoke at emory university commencement this year, i want to read the words that he said because they were way better than i would say them otherwise. he said when he was a kid, i saw those signs that said, john was where 1940, so the stories would've been in the '40s and 50s. i saw those signs that said whitewightman covered men, white women colored women white waiting room colored waiting room. i came home i asked my mother

my father, my grandparents, my great grandparegrandpare nts why? they would say that's the way it is john don't get in the way don't get in trouble. in 1957 at the age of 17 i met rosa parks. in 1958 at the age of 18 i met martin luther king, jr. these two individuals inspired me to get in the way, to get in trouble. so i encourage you to find a way to get in the way, find a way to get in trouble, get in good necessary trouble. so as you tell your stories, as you tell stories of people you fight for, think about always getting into trouble, necessary trouble and encouraging your friends to do the same. thanks. [applause] >> i do have time for one question.

too many stories. the other thing about telling stories, you don't have to take questions. [laughter] >> on an actual volunteer tax attorney. [applause] i have to say i've been in briefings with very good conservative there is that action say that eitc is actually a better solution to helping the poor than the minimum wage. we can debate the minimum wage another time. i will say an actual personal experience my in-laws were actually id fraud and people used, this is the issue that eitc fraud. they had eight kids. somebody invented another two kids filed not an eitc refund on a debit card and really i'm

hearing then from accounts in the district. how do we cut down on the eitc fraud, on a debit card fraud? and generally it been cut down on those things, we can actually provide more eitc two people -- eitc to people. >> opponents to eitc expansion and permanent will use 23 or 25% fraud number. that number is misleading in part because unlike tax returns our income people, they are rarely is the challenge -- bears are rarely a challenge to an audit than i might i might be to somebody whose income is much higher number one. so the 23% would be dramatically reduced, maybe as much as 50% if

the process of appeal were to play out because in many, many cases it's the governments the state, not the eitc filer. number two sometimes the eitc credit the eitc check that goes to the beneficiary, to the taxpayer, to the earner is actually an underpayment. so that's part of that 23%. important to keep that in mind intimate and also important i had a conversation with a senatorsenator who will remain nameless for this conversation who said to me, brought up the 23%. and i said well then we obviously should audit these returns in clean that out. i said but you know, i said that if you put more into eitc enforcement this is republican.

democrats are not going to support more eitc enforcement but not higher income tax enforcement. he said weldon, we should do that come to. i said you guys want to keep cutting irs funding so we have to do fewer audits. so let's play this straight and honest and let's do it in a way that's fair. we don't seem to back away from other federal tax policies because there is some fraud. in most cases the fraud here is only a few dollars. there's not that much money at stake per taxpayer compared to real fraud or real misstatement or underpayment overpayment among higher income people. i appreciate your comments. i think we need to do with this. i think we need to answer that question better than i just did with facts and figures but that's simply not the reason in my mind not to do that. and thank you for being a vita

volunteer, to. [applause] >> thank you so much, senator brown. that was great. we appreciate your fight for lower income working families. it is my great honor really to introduce her eaten was the distinct bloomberg -- professor kathryn edin. insisted i call for kathy which is uncomfortable but i will. in a new book it's not like fesh-fesh it was a clear book of low income americans in this country. is a phenomenal book. i encourage each and everyone of you to get a copy of it. it is moving insightful and quite prescriptive which is important for this crowd. there are great proposals for reform i hope we can talk about today. so please join me in welcoming kathy so she can tell us all about it. [applause]

>> so i look like one person but i'm actually five people. lisa adams is the best litter agent in the nation. if not she's the best academics collectionelection want to write things people want to read. also my co-authors sarah laura start out of my graduate students, three graduations three academic jobs, three marriages and five children later they are now people and scholars in their own right. just imagine a path of five up as a speaker i will start with a story about my former dean at the kennedy school and good friend david ellwood. many of you know the story during the 1980s he gave us the first evidence that most of the recipients were not long-term or rather short-term recipients. he went around the country trying to defend welfare. he found this was the worst job in america. he got hate mail.

he was vilified on the oprah winfrey show. it was even a fight does not intend. recipients of the program refuse to defend. all of this led into a critical insight that any effort to help the poor that would have any real long-term viability had to be fully in line with american values especially the primacy of work and independence of the individual. based on this insight came to washington with an idea. he was helped by lots of folks wendell, janice, bruce. but under david ellwood's inspirational leadership the modern eit c. was born. the first was in 1975 budget might want to think of this as a flourishing in adolescence to adulthood at the world really changed for poor people.

how by coming to this story is in the early '90s i was traveling around the country interviewing hundreds of low-income mothers both welfare recipients and workers about how they pay their bills. so i wrote a book with laura lane called making ends meet really describing this incredible struggle that both those were on welfare but especially those who are trying to old adage i've had a just making the basic bills and all of the ways the shortfalls were causing problems for the family. so imagine my surprise win in 2007 i returned to the field to talk with poor people about their budgets, with centrally workers were receiving the modern eitc. what i found was so fundamentally different than what i had seen in the early '90s. as it turned out this made in america program, we invented this policy description writer in this country, was not making

people feel stigmatized and changed the way welfare had. when you collect welfare in the old days, if this is still true is almost as if you had to trade your citizenship card coming at across the road from being a citizen to being an outcast. in order to collect the benefit. in east boston were some of this research was done there is an old welfare office with the words over the door overseers of the public welfare. with a wire mesh covering the windows. imagine the expense of walking through those doors as compared to the expense of walking through the front doors of a vita site or an h&r block to claim your benefits like every other taxpayer. so when sure what i learned is that while welfare our

traditional way of aiding the poor led to separation. but the eitc seems to be doing for people was making them feel a sense of incorporation. people described the incorporating experience a feeling that the government was rewarding them for doing the right thing and going out and working. and perhaps the most profound thing that was different about the interviews we were conducting in the late 2000s as opposed to the early 1990s was the sense of hope. hope for upward mobility. hope for upward mobility. this is almost absent from the narratives of the folks in the early 1990s. is big lump sum at tax time,

six, seven sometimes $8000, 40% of your income could inspire. the sense of hopefulness, the sense of getting something you deserve like every other taxpayer turns out to shape a people on -- said the money. if you give a poor person six or $7000 at tax time, they will blow it. everybody would be going on a fantasy vacation. instead, we found it's remarkable financial behavior. we found that 25% went to debt. some of that debt was accrued during the year and senator brown alluded to because an actual of the you usually can't make ends meet on your wages alone. but another half of that debt

was for a very long-term debt that people wanted to clean up on so they could move ahead and acquire more assets. most centrally a home. another 25% roughly, less than 25% was spent in paying those bills that usually can't pay every month, and then paying ahead and in particular for car insurance and rent. it's kind of a personal safety net for the hard times as often and the work interruptions that could almost be counted on. 40% went to mobility purposes. so those of you in the asset field can cheer, about 70% of that, of the total was for savings. the rest was generally for her book is, cars, stand-alone freezers that allowed you to live more cheaply and allowed you greater access to wider labor markets and higher education. then it was just a little bit extra, out 10% of the average

refund to invest in your kids. sans going to tell you one story. this story was really get into to my heart to the moms name is debra mckinney. she lives in boston. she had a four year old and a fourth grader who was really struggling in school. it turns out that the fourth grader's birthday was right about the time that she's usually claims are credit. so she said if you can past the fourth grade, when tax time comes around next i'm going to take you to the best seafood restaurant in america. does this little girl loved seafood. so indeed her little girl past the fourth grade. at tax time came around and the family had to find the best seafood restaurant in america. it turns out that although boston has many fine seafood restaurant, it does not have the best seafood restaurant in america. indeed you can't even find the best seafood restaurant in

america come in massachusetts because massachusetts has no red lobster chain. [laughter] 's entire family hopped in the car go all the way to connecticut and at $64 spent on the little girls male was the best part of that mothers year. so 10% goes to support people's identities as parents. there are shortcomings of relying so much on the tax code. we know that canada isn't doing its job. it's not acting as a safety net for people for whom work just doesn't work sometimes the way it should. we used to cover about 60% of the poor with hand if. now it's 45%. a little work we've shown that would proportion of american households forced to survive on less than $2 per person per day in cash income. we need a vigorous temporary safety net when the eitc is not

enough when work is not enough. we also need to expand work opportunities. there are cibecue few jobs to two hours ago rendered it is almost impossible now for many poor parents supporting children to find full-time work. we've also found in our field work that work again be dealing in and of itself. it can provide a sense of incorporation that is so vital so important as long as that were cast enough give. in conclusion, i would say in doing this work and collecting these stores, and by the way if you read the book you can have stories of your own even if you haven't managed to go back and collected them yourself. the critical insight we came away with from doing this work was that everybody longs to contribute. part of the reason people felt so proud to claim this credit is that it was like a badge of honor that they were members of

their communities. they were citizens. they were taxpayers. they were playing by the rules. they were making a contribution. over and over again, families said, i felt like a real american. so i encourage you in your efforts to advance the eitc and thanks for coming. [applause] >> thank you. accuse a much for speaking at are really pushing the field forward with your research. i'm happy to invite the moderator of a panel to join us, greg kaufmann. it occurs to me listen to both senator brown and professor kathy edin greg is a storyteller pickiest told stores through his work now as editor of talk poverty.org. telling stories of people who are in poverty and people are fighting poverty. he did the same when he had a weekly column with the nation, says been fighting this fight

for many years. he's been described as one of the most consistent voices in the poverty of on poverty in america know just add to that consistently thoughtful and consistently on point. so excited to have them. him. please join me in welcoming him and the rest of the panel. [applause] >> [inaudible conversations] >> thank you so much. i had the pleasure of moderating this distinguished bill become going to introduce each of them to you. seated right next to me is laurie-anne sayles. laurie-anne works with the national institute of health

national human genome research institute and along the lines of the importance of telling stores around the numbers, she will help us with that today. so thank you for being here. you met kathy edin the distinguished professor at johns hopkins university. can't say enough about the book that you undergo authors have recently published. it's not like i'm poor. i know you're not going to pocket, i think he should. seated at the next table is chye-ching huang senior tax policy analyst at a d.c.-based think tank center on budget and policy priorities. welcome, chye-ching. at the end of the table there is barbara mantegani past president and current board member of the kennedy tax age which runs these critical vita

sites throughout the d.c. area. so let's get right to it. i'm going to start with laurie piccolo background information about you laura, first that you have shared with me that folks here would be interested in. you face the prospect of being a single mother without a high school diploma, but you graduate high school on time. you went on to earn a ba in public health at the university of maryland, college park. i am a melander myself. he went on to earn a masters in public administration with honors i believe at the university of baltimore. all of this while working full-time and raising your daughter. and last year not only did you get married, but you were a candidate for a delegate to maryland's general assembly at the same time. came up a little short but it was a good run and we are

rooting for you. after the spell is over we will talk about your film rights. you have quite a story. but you said that family and various government programs were really essential to your success including of course particularly your experience with the eitc. could you just talk about how that helped both you and your daughter? >> so i think the senator touched on it a lot you know that time, you know, over the months waiting for you to file your taxes. you kind of incur a lot of unnecessary or unexpected expenses whether it's with your car breaking down or aftercare you know you have this opportunity to have the extra money at a time when it's unexpected. it really put you in a more comfortable feeling. being in poverty and being low

income it's a sense of stress and you are not really sure of what to expect day today. so they can gets you back on track. it's a little cushion to help along the way throughout the year. >> and how would you see that impact your daughter in particular? >> well, she got to take advantage of afterschool activities. i was able to put her into ballet classes. you know being a single parent you kind of want to overcompensate for what you think your child is missing out on so being able to do those extra little things i think it really made her feel like she wasn't different from anyone else. she wasn't missing out on anything. it really helped a lot. >> in terms of obtaining the eitc, doctor edin and senator brown both mentioned the importance of vita sites.

can you talk about what that did for you and your family? >> so, you know, going to the sites and having the people volunteer their time to help you, it's a reassuring feeling. it's a comforting feeling. you know, you don't have the statement of someone looking down at you. you are in an environment where people are ready to help you and it's a comforting feeling to know that those services are available to people in need. you know i learned about the vita because i joined the montgomery county action agency because i wanted to advocate for people who were in my position and really speak to the issues that would affect them. knowing firsthand on the planning side and how much of a benefit this would be to people and really being able to contribute to the services

provided at those sites was a really good feeling. >> i promise i'm going to get to the rest of the panel but just one more thing. you actually had an expense with a non-vita site and you can really contrast that to. can you talk a little about that? >> so before becoming acquainted with the vita site, i didn't go to h&r block. i went to a private tax preparer that i found in the yellow pages and i feel like i was taken advantage of. i wasn't too sure about what deductions i should have whether i should itemize or take the blanket deduction. you know, not being aware of what your options are what your rights are. you can't just say i'm in need of money. i'm going to do whatever i can and i did not get what i was supposed to get on my return. you know luckily we have a trusted vita sites that are

available so that people are not taken advantage of in a situation. >> thank you. dr. edin laurie-anne's experience, both in terms of vita and non-vita sites at her and her daughters express with the eitc is this consistent with a lot of experiences of families you have spoken with through your work? >> so people love a symbolic act of filing their taxes with other taxpayers. whether it's having vita site or not, right? but the fees you pay at vita sites are meaningful and the temptation of course to get whatever it's called now you can do a rapid refund but h&r block has found a way around that, so the temptation to pay a very heavy price each summer your refund early is real, especially when your debt collectors breathing down your back. the thing that i've really heard laurie-anne say was you know

the relief of parental stress, the ways in which the eitc can scaffold your efforts to make your child feel like an ordinary american kid are very, very consistent. and again, it's not like the ballet lessons or one meal at red lobster a year is an extravagant parental expenditure, but the symbolism of those expenditures is so powerful both for a parent and for a chilling. what we really want is for all people to feel like part of america. we want all people to participate in their communities communities. what laurie-anne was saying, what we heard in the field was that this program and the way that we administer this program really has those benefits. >> along those lines i could be wrong about this but wasn't there some research about eitc beneficiaries or participants i should say, the more likely to vote, for example?

did i read that? >> we don't have direct evidence of that but when you deliver benefits to people in a way that respects their dignity and treats them as citizens they are more likely to vote. i think are probably all kinds of spillover effects that are positive from the eitc above and beyond the health effects that have been document it, for example. the researchers ought to get out there and look at these sort of citizenship benefits as well as the financial benefits. >> thank you. chye-ching, there has been a lot of research on some of the long-term impacts of the eitc, editing particularly as the relate to children. children. if you could speak some to that and some of the other long-term impacts. >> there's a striking body of growing research that just keeps coming. it's really fascinating that's showing that the igc has benefits across a lifecycle. you're right particularly for the case of children and

families that receive eitc. so, for example, there are links between increased eitc use an approved maternal and infant health. for right at the beginning is really important. and then on into this going, there's research that shows that higher eitc links to better school performance in elementary and middle school. now we're starting to see the research that shows there's a boost in college enrollment associated with large eitc's. the researchers think that's because the better school performance all the way through but also because it makes college more affordable. finally one step further, we are starting to see research that children who grow up in families with increased income from eitc, when they get to adult themselves, they are more likely to actually work more and earn more. so all the way through we are seeing these really important

impacts. i think going back to the theme about vita, these impacts can't happen if people don't claim the credits they are owed and that's why the volunteer workers spent that's exactly i was going by the research is pretty astounding. barba, i do want to bring you in here to the committee tax aide which were on the board of runs that d.c. can you tell me kind of look at the supply and demand of the sites in this area and to the extent you're comfortable, how that looks nationally as well as? >> sure. first i have to warn you all know i am not rational about the eitc or about vita or about the importance of what it is that we do. so my husband warned me not to get too emotional this morning but i will take you that there's a lot, they are our numbers, there is data there is research. and then there are people. 25 years i've been helping these

people. and the research and the data reflects what i've been missing for 25 years. there is not enough of the supply of people. the number of people that combined committee tax aide various local counties and jurisdictions have on programs that they run aarp has a very big program which is terrific, which put all of those programs together and you do not have enough people to be able to do a return for every single person who is entitled to claim the credit, which means that you people going to preparers who charge too much money. or worse, the upside of electronic filing and of turbotax and programs like that is that it can make it easier and things can go fast and so forth. the downside of those things is

that anybody with enough money to buy a copy of turbotax can go out and say hey i can do your tax return for you. people who don't know anything of what they are doing. and people who deliberately create fraudulent returns a taxpayer him or herself doesn't even know about. there's a volunteer that is volunteering with the program this year who is in the irs in the enforcement division who is prosecuting criminal fraud. one of the very significant things that he is doing is prosecuting cases against prepares for basically prepared parallel returns. so as far as a taxpayer knows they are getting a return. they are getting the refund that they are due and then there's this return that's filed that's all fake it has a much bigger refund. and that refund goes into the repairs account. and so as far as the client

knows they are finding the right thing. so anyway their prosecuting these people. but again as the senator manchin, there's not a lot of funding and so forth. so the demand is huge. the supply is very narrow, and congress will need to take a better look at how to both find -- fund the preparation efforts and also i would go in quickly and i will stop talking, is that the irs tried to create rules to regulate preparers to regulate who can do it require them to go to training and get a certification. and a court knocked that down and said sorry, you don't have the authority to do that. and full disclosure, i also worked at the irs for four years. the point being that since the irs has been told that they don't have the power to impose

rules to regulate preparers congress has to do it because somebody has to do it. because my clients come in after having been taken advantage of by these people and they owe no refunds that okay they were not entitled to them but they did not know they were not entitled to them. they keep paying off that debt to the government. and so again i'm not rational about it but there does need to be some degree of regulation so you can go out to the community and say to these people don't have your return done unless somebody can show you that they have this certification. thatthe taxpayers are not going out there and going that you find someone who's going to like to a fraudulent return. to educate them and they will do the right thing. okay, i'm done. >> i would love to pick up on that point. >> please do. [applause] >> i realize part of the conversation we had earlier the data does back up your rational

feeling. the data shows vita sites have the highest taxi rates of any type of preparers. that is partially because vita volunteers have to go through certification and show that they're competent to file these returns. in contrast, prepares to don't have to go through any process syndication have the highest error rate. that's why in addressing this air issue, this regulation is really important. >> if i am very drunk and it doesn't sound like right now there's a lot of political will in terms of expanding the supply of the number of vita sites. i don't if any of you are for me with that one can comment on it? >> the funding for low income taxpayers, at best it's expected. my organization community tax aid applies for grants every year, and energy fund our operations. there's just not enough to fund

all the sites. and because you can find a legal clinic that can help taxpayers once they've gotten into trouble but truly if you find that people are actually doing the returns, and they are right and the number of times that a taxpayer gets into trouble will be less so you know you sort of redress the problem there but the funding, i don't have the numbers. i can tell you that at best it is stagnant and it has not kept up with the demand. >> thank you. i want to stay with the politics for a little. senator brown had mentioned eitc expanded under bipartisan presidents oath parties sort of a feel-good story. i think we are below that of a potential storm on the horizon. chye-ching, if you could tell us a little bit about eitc and child tax credit expansion that are set to expire in 2017 and

why we need to be paying attention to that. >> and less policymakers to act at the end of 2017 three really key provisions of the eitc and the cdc will expire. that means that millions of families will face a loss of some or all of their credits. it would push more than 16 many people and working families including 8 million children, into deeper poverty. this is a big deal and this is something we think it's a really critical priority for congress. but again going back to the story, what does that mean if you think about a single mother with two children who is working full-time at minimum wage and earning $14,500, she would face the loss of her entire child tax credit, she would lose $1725. if you look at the books, that is a really important amount for people who are struggling to get by and working and trying to raise children.

making those critical provisions permanent is we think a really critical priority for this congress. we've heard news in the house just over the last couple of days, make some other expiring tax but from including tax breaks for corporations. without getting into the merits of those tax provisions can we think that if anything gets made permanent, that is critical credits for working families have to go along with them spent did anyone have anything to add to that? >> anyone who hears that number, 14,500 is the thinking how can anyone live on that? in sort of meticulous analysis of these families budgets you will not be surprised to hear that they can't. we have made a pledge for a long time in this country that if you work, if you play by the rules, you ought to not be poor and you ought to get ahead. the eitc is the way we make good on that promise in america.

even so nobody is living high off the hog on the eitc. they are barely scraping by. this little bit of surplus that comes through savings is responsible economic behavior that think all of us would applaud. the fact that almost 1 dollar inside is put away and saved is quite amazing. it's easy to lose sight of how tough families economic situations are and how unstable the labor market is. the eitc value not only making work pay but in building a personal stake in it so as to whether what's going on now with the low end employment is critical and should be people ought to get rewarded for playing by the rules. this is the way we make that happen here in america. >> thank you. senator brown also alluded to an effort to expand eitc for childless workers. chye-ching, i wonder if you

could tell us all bit more about why that's critical who benefits? >> at the moment childless workers and that means childless adults and noncustodial parents. filers under age 25 who are not filing and claim children are completely ineligible for the eitc at the moment. those who are eligible are eligible for a very small amount. again, someone some working full-time at the minimum wage they would get $25 if they were childless worker. so this is very small. and in part because of that childless workers low income childless workers are the sole group for which federal income and payroll taxes actually attacks the group deeper into poverty. so making more childless workers eligible for eitc and boosting it so that it's an amount that is safe it for their lives that

holds a really strong promise of increasing employment, some of the same effects we've seen for the eitc for families with children and also reducing poverty. i think that's a really important policy priority, and going back to the question about congressional interest in it this is one that has been bipartisan interest. we are really encouraged. >> did anyone else have anything to say on that? >> just in terms of my clients. it's funny. it's hard for me to explain to my clients why they don't get anything. and unicode you don't want to encourage them to go have children but it's hard because they are working very hard. and even if they get the maximum credit, it's less than $500. that's on i don't know income of five or $6000. so it is very, very small and it's hard you know, you can say

from policy perspective that you do want to make sure that people who have young children need more support, but that doesn't mean that if you were childless and are working really hard that you yourself don't need support. i have to say that when i was right out of law school and making a very small amount of money and i was filling out my tax return and i saw this earned him good thing about the okay that's true. i don't make that much money. and instead you need to have a child to an i said oh well, i guess i can't get it. but i think it's sort of an underappreciated population. >> so i think the rub is hardest for noncustodial parents any of whom we need desperate to bring into the labor market. imagine if we could see the games and noncustodial parents form a work ever like we've seen for single mothers but it would change the lives of millions of

children. then there's the noncustodial parent who are actually working and paying child support. they feel the unfairness of the fact that they're not eligible for the tax credit. >> i want to ask through your work with community action and montgomery county i believe, if you are seeing with regard to the childless workers, noncustodial parents if you're seeing some other struggles at the county level debt you can share anything about that? >> we definitely are. one of our initiatives that we are at the forefront of last year was asking for full restoration of the full and -- earned income tax credit or county residents. so we do see a disparity with the people who don't have children, but even residents. in montgomery they match your earned income tax credit at the county level. so it was decreased to 60% but

now it's back to its full of not because our advocacy efforts 80%. montgomery county being one of the wealthiest counties understands the extra benefit to help families and goes a long way. >> that's a whole nother subject, state eitc and i wasn't fully with counties working on that as well. that's a great. professor evening, we will give plenty leave plenty of time for audience questions but i did come in a recent interview that you did with tax credits for working families, there was this great quote you said in getting to know the families, the research and interviews, you said it will really quote help you think more intelligently about policy and the poor whether you're conservative or liberal. can you talk some about that? i found that fascinating. >> so like many of the stable

come when we conducted this research, all of the authors trained as ballinger tax prepares. can i say the test is hard? i tried a couple times, as it should be but i think it took me quite a long time to pass it. and my entire class of 30 students at the kennedy school we all band to vita sites in boston, one in the dorchester neighborhood and one in east boston. and if you want to know how poor people think, what their lives are like there is no better way than to follow the money. it's a poignant time i think sitting across the desk from a family or an individual i think their taxes. you learn, it's kind of an intimate moment where you learn some very private things about an individual. there is a chance for you to build on that feeling that people so valued that they are

really citizens and taxpayers. so you can get a lot even in that interaction, but you will come away with an understanding of the pledges of the working poor that will really transform you and help you you know, when you act you will have the voices of real people in the back of your mind which of course, is always better than acting without that. >> if i can just say one more thing about the actual experience of working with the clients. they have to tell your very personal things because you need to know about their children and whether they are living and what they have been doing and if i have lost their job. they're upset about that incident really have to do with an on a very personal level. i had a client years ago and i was at someone else's site so i was doing the return. if i start like crying, don't get upset, but this woman had been through just a horrendous situation.

she had been evicted from her apartment because she lost her job and children homeless shelter with her children at the her sister took in the children but wouldn't take her in to she got a job at the cvs working out the one hour photo. this is a job that some of us might not value all that much right? we might not think that was such a great thing but this was the most wonderful thing in this woman's life. she came in for me to do her return and she said how blessed she was that she had this job and it was great and the people she worked with were fabulous. so i did her return and the previous year, whoever the person was who did the return have someone i figured out about this, but the earned income credit. so i thought the return, i get done and i tell her that she's going to get this refund of like $3000 or something but and she threw her arms around and she said, you are giving me my children back. okay, and you go oh, my god.

because she was going to now have money that she could then put down a security deposit on an apartment. it's not that she couldn't pay the rent from the money she was making from the cvs but she didn't have them and to be able to get a place to live with her children. and when somebody says to you you are giving me my children back, you carry that with you forever. it is that profound an impact that this tax credit can make. it's not puppies and babies are taxes, it's so boring, but it is profound the impact that happens. >> i forgot a question i wanted to ask early on actually. it was really for you professor, anyone can comment on it but eitc program that functions much more than just an income boosting program. it really has an impact on asset building. i didn't know if we had a chest that as much as maybe you might

like to speak to? >> as i said 40% of the refund is typically spent toward mobility purposes. 17% of the total is set aside for savings, and much of the rest goes to human capital development, and especially durable goods. so there are measurable improvement in people's lives that are laborsaving. when you have a standalone refrigerator you can shop much more efficiently and buy in bulk. they make sort of the day-to-day schedule more doable, especially if you're able to buy and maintain a used vehicle. so these are measurable improvements to people's lives. but maybe what's the most meaningful is the sense that you didn't get ahead, that you can be something different from what you are now that you can enter the middle class.

people not only plan all year for how to spend their eitc, making detailed calculations on the back of envelopes. they have multi-year plans for how they're going to say, how they're going to clean up the credit, how they're going to make a down payment on a home how they're going to move to a quieter place with safer streets and better schools. these narratives drive them all year long. they keep them going. so this is not just an income support. this is really not only of wealth creation device, but a whole different idea of what life can be like in the future. >> thank you. before we turn to the audience this is sort of a freebie. anything i didn't ask any of you guys about that you really, really hope to speak to. wow that's good that i kind of did my job i guess. all right audience.

am i calling on -- okay. right here in the front. >> the same way you think about time in school that teachable moments we think of tax time as the tax moment. the final question that greg asked really is how does this moment move beyond just refund and help aspirations for the future and for academics? so one of the reasons we we're excited to be more deeply part of this movement is because so many of the vita volunteers have become adequate asset building advocates, and want to link a whole set of other services to what's happening at these sites because they see the potential. so i would love everybody's idea, starting with laurie-anne about how do we leverage this

moment? how should we be think about the other services, the other products, the other partnerships that we can use at the tax moment? >> one of the things that we started doing at our vita site in montgomery county is when you come in to signing your name there is not just a list of your personal information at its also, it links to social services. do you need help with childcare? do you need help with training or job skills? it's a whole form that you fill out, and after you're done preparing your taxes okay, we will refer you to this organization or refer you to that. providing an atmosphere where you have partnering organizations better and you kind of weed out what people want at that time kind of helps them with other services that they may not be aware of the. >> at our site we try, we have

partnered with others organizations in virginia for credit counseling. so we will have someone at our site and so somebody can either while they are waiting, the interminable wait to get the return done or after it's done to go meet with a credit counselor, they can look at the credit score. many of these people, again, i want to be able to buy a car or buy a house or whatever. ..