The American Rescue Plan Act (ARP) of 2021 provided $1.9 trillion in aid and economic stimulus in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Included in the legislation was a temporarily increased Child Tax Credit (CTC). To better understand the ways in which settlement house families were able to use the expanded Child Tax Credit and to assess the ongoing unmet needs they experience, Educational Alliance partnered with United Neighborhood Houses (UNH) and the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) to conduct a survey of more than 1,000 families participating in New York settlement houses.

The first wave of this project, the Settlement House American Rescue Plan (SHARP) Impact Study, investigates family experiences in New York State’s settlement house network related to access and use of the CTC as well as extant needs among families.  The follow-up study summarizes findings from a second wave of SHARP surveys of more than 1,000 families during winter 2022-23 and offers a report from the field about New York parents’ experiences providing for their families since the expiration of the expanded federal Child Tax Credit.

The findings from these studies serve several key functions. Firstly, they inform antipoverty policies, interventions, and supports at all levels of government. Secondly, information from the SHARP Impact Study may be used to drive programmatic decisions for community-based organizations within the UNH network. Lastly, they provide concrete policy recommendations that can be used to strengthen economic security for families moving forward.