Checks and Balance: Credit where it’s due
Checks and Balance from The Economist
The Economist
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2022
⏱️ 44 minutes
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Summary
Last year it looked like America had found the solution to child poverty: spend more. The expanded child tax credit is thought to have lifted around 3.7m children out of poverty. But the legislation expired and rates shot back up. How did America find the answer to a long-running problem, only to abandon it?
Senator Michael Bennet tells us why he’s been a long-time proponent of the policy. And The Economist’s Stevie Hertz visits a food bank in the Bronx to find out how the payments helped families in need.
John Prideaux presents with Idrees Kahloon and Charlotte Howard.
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Transcript
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| 0:36.4 | A young girl sits on the steps of a dirty stoop, clutching a teddy bear in her arms. |
| 0:42.1 | As the camera slowly zooms in, her blue eyes stare sadly at the viewer and a voice starts to speak, in German. |
| 0:49.6 | She lives with little access to nutritious food, the narrator says. |
| 0:53.6 | 49 million Americans are living with food insecurity. It goes on. |
| 0:59.2 | America needs Germany's help now. |
| 1:03.6 | The video went viral last year. |
| 1:05.4 | Americans incredulous that things were so bad at home that Germans saw them as charity cases. |
| 1:11.8 | In fact, it was a stunt launched in 2015 by a US food poverty campaign that had found new life on social media. |
| 1:19.9 | But the fake advert had a real message. |
| 1:22.2 | Among industrialized nations, America has consistently had one of the worst child poverty rates. |
| 1:28.4 | I'm John Prado, and this is Chex and Balance from the Economist. |
| 1:35.4 | Each week, we take one big theme, shaping American politics and explore its in depth. |
| 1:40.6 | Today, how did America find the answer to its child poverty problem, and then abandon it? |
| 2:02.4 | There's not much mystery as to why the US has long had one of the highest rates of child poverty in the rich world. |
| 2:08.5 | America's government spends little on children in comparison to its peers. |
| 2:13.2 | Last year, it seemed like politicians had found the solution, spend more. |
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