Americans overwhelmingly support legislation to allow everyone to receive a tax break for their charitable gifts, according to a poll released Tuesday by Independent Sector, a membership organization of nonprofits that is pushing the idea. It is possible that Congress will vote to expand charitable deductions in a pending disaster funding package, but the biggest obstacle is the calendar. Congress has a limited time to consider legislation before going into recess for the entire month of October before the November midterm elections.

Child pover­ty in the U.S. has surged, near­ly tripling from 5% in 2021 to 13% in 2024. This dra­mat­ic increase fol­lows the expi­ra­tion of pan­dem­ic-era eco­nom­ic poli­cies and ris­ing prices that have strained fam­i­ly bud­gets nation­wide. How­ev­er, a new report from the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion under­scores the pro­found impact of pub­lic poli­cies and pro­grams, demon­strat­ing their capac­i­ty to cut child pover­ty in half.