The staggering rise follows the GOP and Manchin's crusade to kill the expanded child care credit.

The United States’ poverty rate experienced its largest one-year jump on record last year, with the rate among children more than doubling from 2021’s historic low of 5.2 percent to 12.4 percent according to new numbers from the US Census Bureau out today. They’re the latest data to reflect the devastating effects following the expiration of nearly all pandemic-era relief programs. That includes the end of Medicaid rules that protected recipients from getting kicked off because of administrative errors, an end to rental assistance policies, and the restart of student loan payments.

These policies might seem like a distant memory at this point. But they’re worth recalling with the arrival of every new report. Each demonstrates what happens when politicians long hostile to caregivers, universal health care, and the welfare state, for a brief moment, acted to create powerful, federally-backed safety net programs aimed at helping everyday Americans. One of the most effective programs to emerge was the expansion of the child tax credit, which provided families monthly checks of up to $300 per child and broadened eligibility rules for qualifying families. In turn, child poverty rates plummeted; the extra income allowed caregivers to quit grueling second and third jobs; parents were able to buy their kids decent clothes and help stop taunting at school. The Census Bureau previously reported that food insecurity dropped dramatically after just the first extended payment, from 10.7 million households reporting they didn’t have enough food to 7.4 million.

But as the pandemic receded, Republicans with the help of West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who in private remarks reportedly warned that families were using the extra income to buy drugs, appeared to remember the country’s longstanding pre-pandemic hostility. Their opposition ultimately tanked President Biden’s agenda, and along with it, the brief life of the expanded child tax credit. That’s something worth remembering today as the predictable crowd is likely to cry about Democratic-engineered inflation.

        • pingveno@lemmy.ml
          ·
          10 months ago

          West Virginia has gotten more and more conservative over time. It used to be more of a blue state. In 2020, Trump got double the votes that Biden did. Manchin is going to struggle to hold the seat if he runs again, let alone some left wing upstart without name recognition who is poorly matched to the state's politics.

            • pingveno@lemmy.ml
              ·
              9 months ago

              Joe Manchin is conservative for a Democrat, but he is no Republican. Any replacement will be a right wing Republican that the Democratic Party has no influence over. Manchin highlights his independence from either party. A replacement would highlight their mindless opposition to any proposal by the left or Democrats.

          • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
            ·
            10 months ago

            West Virginia has gotten more and more conservative over time. It used to be more of a blue state.

            WV was a blue state because unions. When Dems started attacking the largest union industries in the state, and started emphasizing identity politics over labor that was pretty much it.

            • Kuori [she/her]
              ·
              10 months ago

              emphasizing identity politics

              yes. the democrats are so good at protecting marginalized peoples. that is clearly where their effort goes. just ask anyone trans who lives in joe biden's america how much fun they're having~

              • AOCapitulator [they/them]
                ·
                10 months ago

                Identity politics are the liberal nothingburger approach to pretending to care about marginalized groups

                The real version of this is intersectionality. If you hear “identity politics” think worthless liberalism like naming a road after George Floyd

              • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
                ·
                10 months ago

                Never said they were successful at that. What I'm getting at is that there's a shift in Dem rhetoric that happened about 20 years ago where the emphasis stopped being on labor, and started being on identity groups. This is very convenient for their corporate sponsorship, as silly things like worker's rights and labor unions are not things said sponsors want to support, for obvious reasons. By comparison, something like which bathroom trans people shit in is a perfectly fine topic from the perspective of the corporate masterminds, because it doesn't impact their cash flow.

                This is the same reason why the Dems are comically bad at getting anything done - half their policies are pro-worker ones kept eternally on the back burner only to be brought out in a pre-compromised form and then compromised further on when the calls from the base get too loud, and the rest are ones where they try to keep various minority groups on the edge of existential terror by suggesting that if you don't vote for them then you'll be one step closer to being marched off to the death camps.

            • silent_water [she/her]
              ·
              10 months ago

              actually I disagree with the existence of stupidpol and patsoc types

      • Adkml [he/him]
        ·
        10 months ago

        By not conrinuing to support and fund them.

        By doing literally anything.

        But anytime anybody says that we get a lecture on how dems have to keep supporting him otherwise he'd do the exact same things as a republican.

          • StalinwasaGryffindor [he/him, comrade/them]
            ·
            10 months ago

            Speaking as a non-american, the only way to avoid burgerlands nosedive into fascism would take so much more work and would definitely involve losing the senate. To me, you have to completely remake the Supreme Court and senate, and part of that is to always attack them and their legitimacy. Every democratic spokesperson should be bring up how corrupt and unaccountable these institutions are

            Like, open up criminal cases against Clarence Thomas and Alito over their corruption. Same with manchin. Every one of these ghouls have done criminal acts. Even if you don’t win the court cases (and you won’t), you’ve dragged these peoples names into the mud and will help expose the flaws in both Congress and the courts. Get a majority of people mad enough that they shut down the country through strikes and demonstrations and you’ll suddenly find the remaining judges and congresspeople a lot more amenable.

            Now, you’ll have thought up a ton of reasons why this won’t work. So have I, and the major reason to me is that most of the democrats are the same kind of garbage as the republicans, along with Americans being incredibly docile except when they’re murdering each other plus a million other reasons. So fuck both parties, vote or don’t, I don’t really care, but don’t expect me to be impressed by joe Biden

          • Adkml [he/him]
            ·
            10 months ago

            Ok here's some actual examples.

            Take him off all committees stop giving him any money or support for relecrions and start closing military bases in his state.

      • redladadriver [none/use name]
        ·
        10 months ago

        Why are Democrats giving money to "Democrats" who won't support their agenda? Why did the DNC support Manchin and Sinema financially, but actually give money to Republicans over Progressive Democrats? You can't be against Fascists, but still financially support them over Social Democrats...An unemotional look at the DNC's behaviour shows that even if you got 70 Senators, the things we want would not get done. The Democrats are closer to the Republicans than any Socialist/ Communist/Anarchist in here..