"Congress passed the expanded child tax credit as part of the American Rescue Plan, President Biden’s pandemic-relief package, in early 2021. But while other Covid-era relief programs were always intend-ed to expire once the emergency passed, supporters hoped to make the expanded child credit perma-nent. That didn’t happen. Faced with united opposition from congressional Republicans as well as some conservative Democrats, Mr. Biden dropped his effort to extend the program at the end of 2021; a renewed push failed again last year. The rise in poverty in 2022, social policy experts said, was the inevitable result of that decision. “Today’s Census report shows the dire consequences of congres-sional Republicans’ refusal to extend the enhanced Child Tax Credit, even as they advance costly cor-porate tax cuts,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. Correspondingly, the highest increases in poverty were in the South, where research has shown the child tax credit had the greatest effect, and among Alaska Natives and American Indians, for whom the poverty rate rebounded to 23.2 percent."