An expansion of the Child Tax Credit, including restoration of monthly payments of up to $300, are part of President Joe Biden’s fiscal year 2024 budget proposal.

The plan calls for a restart of the Child Tax Credit that was first enacted in the American Rescue Plan passed during the COVID0-19 pandemic. It would expand the existing $2,000 credit to $3,600 per child for those under age 6 and $3,000 per child for children 6 and older. ARP paid half the credit in the form of monthly payments of $300 or $250 per child, with the remainder claimed on tax returns.

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“This president clearly believes that the way to grow this economy is invest in the middle class and working families, and that we have to grow the economy from the bottom up and the middle out,” Shalanda Young, director of the United States Office of Management and Budget, said.

The expanded tax credit expired in December 2021 though Biden has kept restarting the program at the top of his agenda. Biden’s budget would also make the credit fully refundable, meaning if the amount of the credit is larger than the taxed owed, the taxpayer will receive a refund for the difference.

Advocates of the restart credit the payments for lifting families out of poverty. A study by Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy, kept as many as 3.4 million children from poverty.

Some 930,000 Alabama children representing 560,000 families received monthly child tax credit payments, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The study showed 91% of Alabamians who received the payments used the money for basic needs. If you add in education expenses, that percentage increased to 95%. Nationwide, 88% of recipients said they used the child tax credit payments for basic needs; 91% said they used for basic needs plus education.-related expenses.