The First Focus Campaign for Children LEGISLATIVE Scorecard
As the 118th Congress draws to a close, First Focus Campaign for Children’s Legislative Scorecard reveals a discouraging reality: The nation’s lawmakers have largely failed our children.
This session of Congress began in January 2023 with children near the top of the country’s agenda. Significant and long-overdue investments by the federal government had stabilized child care, curbed child hunger, kept millions of children insured, and beaten back child poverty to the lowest level in our nation’s history. These investments pushed the share of federal spending on children to a record high of 11.98% in FY 2021. All Congress had to do was keep this trend going.
And yet…
Congressional inaction doomed the nation’s children from the start. Over and over, lawmakers refused to consider or actively tanked legislation to improve the lives of children. Perhaps the most egregious example is the failure to advance a Child Tax Credit proposal that would have improved the lives of 16 million low-income children and lifted 400,000 out of poverty. In this case, 44 senators let politics intervene, choosing to use children as a bargaining chip toward a 2025 debate by filibustering any action this year.
The session ends on Dec. 31, 2024, with investment in the nation’s children already down more than 3 percentage points from its high, representing the third straight year of decline. More than 5 million children have lost health care coverage. One-in-10 kids are without enough to eat and poverty has reclaimed 1 million children.
Fortunately, the First Focus Campaign for Children’s Legislative Scorecard demonstrates that there are many important Champions and Defenders in Congress working to improve the lives of children. The Scorecard reflects the votes, bill sponsorships, and other actions lawmakers took — or didn’t — during the entirety of the 118th Congress. Those who consistently used their office to actively promote the well-being of children are named Champions for Children. Those who often prioritized children and stood strong against attacks on them earned the mark of Defenders of Children. In the face of a Congress that often chose a path of inaction or worse, the Champions and Defenders identified in our Scorecard stood up and spoke out to support and protect the lives and well-being of our nation’s children.
We urge the public and our partners in the child advocacy community to use the Legislative Scorecard as a resource tool to thank those Champions and Defenders of children for their outstanding work, and to urge others to make children a greater priority in the upcoming 119th Congress. Only when Congress chooses to put our children first can we ensure both they and our nation achieve our greatest potential.