Campaign To Strengthen Tax Credits For Low-Income Americans Begins

WASHINGTON, -- Bread for the World today launched its 2010 Offering of Letters campaign to urge Congress to protect and strengthen key tax credits that benefit low-income workers and their families.

Taxes will be near the top of the 2010 agenda in Congress as a series of tax cuts are set to expire this year. "In the midst of the debate over which taxes to change and which to renew, the needs of low-income people should not be lost," said Rev.David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World.

He said that the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is one such benefit. It is a program designed to help bridge the gap between low-wage earnings and the costs of meeting basic needs. The EITC lifts almost 10 million Americans, including 5 million children, above the poverty line. The average EITC benefit is $2,500 for families with children. The credit is considered by both Democrats and Republicans as a powerful anti-poverty tool.

"We know food assistance to hungry people is vital, but it is not enough. Progress against hunger requires broader economic efforts like tax policy reforms to reduce poverty," said Rev. Beckmann.

Rev. Beckmann added that low-income families often live on the edge of a financial precipice. The car breaking down, a parent being laid off from her job, a child getting sick — any of these can mean the difference between having enough food or not. Programs like the EITC play a critical role in keeping low-income working families from falling off that edge. In addition, Bread for the World will work to protect and strengthen the Child Tax Credit, and to increase funding for Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites.

More than 1,500 churches and denominations throughout the United States will participate in Bread for the World's 2010 Offering of Letters campaign (www.bread.org/OL2010). As part of the worship service or mass, Christians will write letters to Congress in support of legislation that will benefit poor and hungry people. Instead of money, these letters are placed in the offering plates and dedicated to God.

In Sunday school classrooms and on campuses, young people will also write letters and pray over them before they are mailed to their representatives in Congress. "For the cost of a stamp, you can literally change someone's life," said BishopDon DiXon Williams, Bread for the World staff member.

Previous Bread for the World Offering of Letters campaigns have focused on broad reform of the U.S. farm bill and increases in benefits to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly food stamps), the creation of the Millennium Challenge Account, and increased funding for programs that address the causes of poverty in developing nations. While it launches this new campaign, Bread for the World will still continue its campaign to reform U.S. foreign aid.

Bread for the World's Offering of Letters materials are available online at www.bread.org/OL2010.

Bread for the World (www.bread.org) is a collective Christian voice urging our nation's decision makers to end hunger at home and abroad.

SOURCE Bread for the World