On Friday, February 27, the Greater Hartford Gives Foundation submitted written testimony in support of Senate Bill 103, An Act Establishing A Refundable Child Tax Credit. We support providing families with children direct financial assistance to meet basic needs, including the cost of quality childcare. The federal child tax credit implemented July to December 2021 provided an essential lifeline to families with children , and the need for the state to support parents with limited income who need to work and manage high food, housing, and other costs is urgent.
Current data and the foundation’s experience working with nonprofits to support families with children struggling inform our recommendation. We are not experts on the mechanics of the credit but fundamentally recognize families struggling need financial relief.
Senate Bill 103 would provide critical support for working and other parents by establishing a child tax credit for eligible taxpayers with dependent children. The proposal provides a credit for up to three children, starting at $150 per child for the 2026 tax year and gradually increasing to $600 per child over the following three years.
The proposed refundable tax credit means families with children without any tax liability would receive the full value of the credit. We understand the pressures on the state budget but ask the Committee to consider increasing the credit for tax year 2026 to a level that can provide meaningful assistance. The foundation supports the proposal’s phasing in increasing the credit to manage the impact on the budget over time but also recognize many low- and moderate Connecticut families with children struggle now to manage rising costs across household needs including food, housing, fuel, and childcare.
Given changes in federal policy in implementing SNAP and other public benefit programs, Connecticut’s child tax credit needs to provide meaningful support to families with limited income as soon as possible. As we saw with the federal child tax credit during the pandemic, this financial assistance tool is a critical strategy to help families in Connecticut meet food and other basic needs. We encourage the Committee to also incorporate a mechanism to assess the impact of the tax credit over the next three years to further inform approaches to providing adequate flexible dollars to families with children.
According to an analysis of a similar state child tax credit published in 2024 by DataHaven, statewide, 75 percent of all households with children would receive the credit, amounting to $306 million in refunds to 268,000 eligible families. The report acknowledges the 2021 federal tax credit led to a large drop in food insecurity among families with children nationally and in Connecticut. Another analysis published that same year by Connecticut Voices for Children found that this credit would include approximately 550,000 children, or 74 percent of children statewide. Through the foundation’s grantmaking and other investments, we have seen the value of providing financial assistance to residents first-hand.
As part of our efforts to dismantle structural racism and advance equity in social and economic mobility in Greater Hartford’s Black and Latine communities, Greater Hartford Gives supports basic human needs in our region by ensuring food security, reducing homelessness, and expanding access to health care. This work recognizes that longstanding systems and practices are challenged to meet people’s most basic human needs. Through our investments, we have seen that when essential needs are met, people are better able to achieve stability and other goals.
We support nonprofits working to reduce homelessness, food insecurity, and helping to improve the physical and emotional wellbeing of Greater Hartford residents, prioritizing Black and Latine residents who are disproportionately impacted by structural racism and bias. Our grantmaking helps to strengthen the local and regional safety net and ensure people have the stability necessary to participate in education, the workforce, and their community. We also support activities that increase the coordination among basic needs providers, and the responsiveness of local and state agencies.
The foundation’s basic human needs strategies intersect with our Employment Opportunities investments where we have seen connections to food, housing, and other wraparound supports are essential in supporting people in persisting in job training as well as securing and sustaining employment.
Through our grantmaking and broader work with nonprofits, we have seen increased needs among families with children to access adequate food, health, and other basic services. High grocery prices and the rising number of families with limited income struggling to make ends meet require the state to provide a safety net that ensures that families have access to food.
We want to share what we are learning from the research supported by the foundation and work with nonprofit providers supporting the basic needs of the families they serve.
As a member of the Connecticut Urban Opportunity Collaborative (CUOC), a partnership among Greater Hartford Gives, The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, and Fairfield County’s Community Foundation, the foundation has invested in UpTogether to launch a multi-regional Direct Cash Pilot Program to promote social and economic mobility while studying the impact of direct cash assistance in Connecticut. The pilot program is designed to support 120 leaders from Hartford, New Haven, and Bridgeport who are facing economic hardship and collaborating to build community power and improve their lives and neighborhoods. Over three years, participant households will receive monthly payments totaling $12,600 to help alleviate financial challenges and foster community improvements.
A growing body of evidence from the many direct cash programs operating across the country demonstrate that direct cash can lead to increased food security, improved health, more stable employment and housing, and increased family incomes and savings. Recent studies have documented that funds help pay for basic needs, utilities, and rent, but can also be used for paying off debt or building emergency savings, investing in education or a business, and paying for school supplies. CUOC’s early assessment of its pilot program shows participants have been able to use the flexible funds to support housing stability (preventing evictions), support their children in attending summer and other programs. Participants also feel they have the ability to collaborate with others in their community to address local needs. Recognizing and trusting in people’s strengths, abilities, and self-determination in using flexible dollars complements available taxpayer dollars for public benefits, filling gaps in everyday family expenses not adequately covered. This child tax credit represents a modest effort on the part of the state to provide households with flexible support to meet shifts in immediate family needs.
According to Feeding America, more than 516,000 (1 in 7) Connecticut residents struggle with hunger; more than 122,000 (1 in 6) children are food insecure. Child hunger has risen, with rates reaching up to 25 percent in cities like Hartford and New Haven. The food insecurity crisis among children can lead to developmental delays, mental health issues, and physical illnesses.
The Commission on Women, Children, Seniors, Equity and Opportunity‘s State of Food Insecurity in Connecticut 2025 Report found that the overall state of food security in Connecticut has significantly worsened and that will likely continue in the coming years without significant intervention. Connecticut has passed Maine for the highest food insecurity rate in New England.
For many years, the foundation has provided annual grants to address basic human needs (totaling approximately $8 million this past year) to support regional and local nonprofit agencies in providing direct services and addressing systemic challenges. Our grants tackle a range of related issues, including food security and healthy food choices and other supports for wellness.
These grants include the Foundation’s annual Basic Human Needs Emergency Assistance grants where more than 60 percent of funding supports food assistance. Last year, $755,000 was granted by the foundation to 70 nonprofits, including faith-based and mutual aid organizations received Emergency Assistance grants. These grants prioritized nonprofits that serve neighborhoods and towns with a higher percentage of residents living in poverty and sought to reduce barriers to equitable access to basic needs. Our investments have helped to address a portion of the enormous need, but philanthropy cannot adequately address food insecurity without state investments to mitigate federal SNAP reductions and in free food programs in public schools where access to food is essential.
Each year, the foundation has also awarded approximately $1 million to local nonprofit organizations that provide access to emergency shelter, warming centers, housing subsidies, case management, eviction prevention and other services to residents at risk of or experiencing homelessness. The foundation’s investments also include smaller annual emergency assistance grants made to proximate organizations providing urgent food, clothing, financial assistance (i.e., rent and utility expenses).
As critical is our support of work to address systemic barriers to quality, stable, affordable housing, including the Greater Hartford Coordinated Access Network and the policy agenda of CT CAN End Homelessness.
The foundation also invests in complementary efforts designed to increase the stability, availability, and quality of affordable housing in the Greater Hartford region; align and leverage additional investment in Hartford neighborhoods; and increase the social strength and connectedness of Hartford neighborhoods. This work includes supporting efforts to increase the number of Hartford residents living in thriving neighborhoods that provide quality schools, affordable housing, jobs, and green spaces by working with nonprofit, government, and other community partners.
According to the 2023 Hartford Foundation Equity Profile produced by DataHaven, with increasing housing costs, 34 percent of Connecticut households (homeowners and renters) report being housing cost burdened or severely cost burdened. In Greater Hartford, Latino households experience the highest rate of housing cost burden at 48 percent and Black households at 46 percent, compared to 27 percent of White households.
Connecticut households have also been experiencing significantly increased costs for utilities. The foundation is a long-time funder of Generation Power (formerly Operation Fuel) which partners with agencies across Connecticut to provide emergency assistance for residents who fall through the gaps of government assistance programs and remains a primary source for low-to-moderate-income households that have exhausted all other options to keep their lights on, water running, and homes warm.
Connecticut’s energy costs are among the highest in the nation. In May 2023, Generation Power published Mapping Household Cost Burdens: A study of energy, transportation, water, and housing affordability in Connecticut, produced by the Vermont Energy Investment Corporation.
According to the study:
- Approximately 424,000 families struggle to afford their energy costs (that is one in four households in Connecticut).
- Statewide, average household spending on building energy (including electricity, natural gas, propane, and other fuels) is $3,800 annually.
- Electricity and natural gas prices increased nine percent between 2016 and 2021 and an additional 12 percent in 2022.
- Fuel prices increased 14 percent between 2016 and 2021. Low-income families have a higher energy burden and pay more on their utility and oil bills than they can afford. Energy burden is the percentage of a household’s income spent on energy costs.
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- Connecticut households earning less than 60 percent of statewide median income (SMI) have an energy burden of 13 percent.
- The poorest households, those with incomes of less than 30 percent of SMI, have an energy burden of 19 percent (19 percent of their income goes toward energy costs).
Another area of the foundation’s strategic focus to advance financial mobility is investing in nonprofits working to increase stable employment opportunities for Black and Latine adults and youth facing barriers to employment. In Greater Hartford, there are a number of good paying jobs available, but access to affordable, quality childcare remains a barrier for many working parents. The foundation’s efforts focus on preparation, hiring and retention of residents with significant barriers to employment. This work includes 2Gen programs that take a family-centered approach and considers childcare and supports for parents, as well as young adults and children in their households, allowing parents to focus on their education and job training and working.
One of the foundation’s initial workforce development initiatives, the Career Pathways Initiative (CPI), integrated education programs, support services, and career development to assist adult learners and expand their academic and job skill levels as a way of reaching self-sufficiency. CPI included an extensive evaluation of its various programs and outlined some of the challenges and successes of the initiative. One of the key findings included that childcare was the most frequent and costliest barrier to address and highlighted transportation and other challenges.
Ensuring that all children, especially those most vulnerable, have access to high quality early childhood experiences is a critical step to ensuring their safety and well-being, and removing this barrier to employment. The foundation’s early investments included supporting early childhood education in the Alliance School Districts in our region, which represented one of the largest expansions of early childhood education services in state history.
Since 1987, the foundation has invested more than $40 million in early childhood development across the Greater Hartford area. The foundation has supported early childhood policy, funding, and program quality, recognizing their importance in ensuring optimal safety and learning outcomes for children and pathways to economic security for their families and caregivers. Part of our early work continues to include participating in the Connecticut Early Childhood Funder Collaborative, funders supporting early childhood education.
The foundation’s early childhood development work included convening local childcare providers to support licensing and organizational development. As part of its COVID response efforts, the foundation awarded financial support to childcare providers, including assistance in applying for federal Paycheck Protection Program funds. With the possible exception of rent and mortgage payments, the cost of childcare is one of the largest expenses facing Connecticut working families.
We recognize that the cost of living in Connecticut is high, and our state is the only state with a personal income tax not adjusted for family size, which makes paying for basic needs for families with limited income challenging.
The child tax credit proposed in Senate Bill 103 would provide households with flexible resources they can use to respond to their most pressing needs. It also has the potential of boosting local businesses and the state’s economy. Refundable tax credits are particularly valuable to families who do not earn enough to pay state income taxes but still contribute a significant share of their limited income on sales tax.
The Greater Hartford Gives Foundation is ready to partner with legislators, state government leaders, philanthropy, advocates, and other stakeholders to ensure that all residents have the resources they need to thrive. We invite policymakers and other stakeholders to meet with us to explore public-private partnerships and ways philanthropic dollars could complement existing resources to help address funding gaps and foster equitable strategies to support Connecticut residents with significant unmet needs.