Lettie Hicks: Tax credits help ease financial struggles for working mothers
As a mother of three children living in East St. Louis, I know the personal pain of struggling just to get by.
I work hard and take pride in my job. But when the pandemic hit, my hours were cut back and the money I use to support my family and pay my bills got much tighter. I wasn’t sure what we were going to do.
At our rock bottom, we learned an increase in the federal Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit was going to help turn our fortunes around.
Sure, the few hundred dollars we received from the credit couldn’t stop all of our problems. But when you have no money to save month to month, and you aren’t sure when or if you can pay rent or meet your other needs, every little bit helps. It’s a relief to know that while you still have struggles, you don’t have to struggle quite so much.
The extra help from the expanded credit also gave our community some hope. For once, East St. Louis could use a program to give tax money back to people and be something that is useful to all — no one left out, no one left behind.
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Across Illinois, there are thousands of stories like mine.
Maria, a single mom from suburban Chicago, has worked hard to put everything she has into her four daughters’ education. She quit her job at the beginning of the pandemic to stay at home, then got sick with COVID-19 and reached out everywhere for help. She drives other struggling families to the local food bank every week and dreams of what she could do with enough cash to pay the bills.
Johnetta is a former safety inspector from the Austin neighborhood in Chicago. She’s applied for every rental assistance program available to help pay her rent, but cannot seem to find a break for herself and her 4-year-old daughter with quadriplegic cerebral palsy. She has worked through a great organization Revolution Workshop to find some help, but the strain of 24/7 caregiving alone with her child is high. More help is needed, soon.
We are all excited about having more help through an expanded Earned Income Credit and new Child Tax Credit. A few hundred dollars every year might not seem like much, but when you live on only what you make week to week or month to month, every dollar counts. An extra $600 would change our lives for the better.
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Single moms like Maria, Johnetta and me want to work for what we earn. We want the same shot everyone else has to bring in a paycheck that pays our bills and gives our kids more than we have ever had. We want tomorrow to be better than today.
We are the faces of the Earned Income Credit and the Child Tax Credit at the Illinois Capitol. We need the help, and we need it now. If we can get it, we will be so grateful and will put that money right back into helping others like us who are working hard to support their families. We can’t do it without the extra help, so please vote to give us a shot at a better life.
Lettie Hicks is a single mother from East St. Louis who is a parent leader with the Community Organizing and Family Issues organization based in Chicago.