The Earned Income Tax Credit, Black Workers, and the Case for Reform: Refundable Tax Credits and Black Economic Security

This brief, The Earned Income Tax Credit, Black Workers, and the Case for Reform: Refundable Tax Credits and Black Economic Security, makes the case for protecting and strengthening the EITC on the merits, and it does so during an affordability crisis in which Black unemployment remains nearly double the white rate even after declining from its late 2025 peak. In that environment, the credit functions as economic survival for millions of Black workers and families: the one large cash payment of the year that lets a family catch up rather than fall further behind. With the 2026 midterms set to seat a new Congress, this brief is also written to inform incoming and returning members, and the staff who advise them, before that debate begins. Defending the credit from cuts is the immediate task, but it is not the larger one. The larger aim is to build a durable evidence based case for equitable EITC reform, so that when the next reform window opens, the argument for a credit that finally reaches the workers it now leaves behind is already on the record and ready to guide the debate.

This brief is part of The Tax Code and Black Wealth policy brief series examining how the federal tax code builds wealth for some and strips it from others, organized into sub-series that each take up a different part of the code. This series examines those choices systematically.

Read the brief here.