Congress expands tax credit to working families earning just $1 per year
S. 3596 — Stronger Start for Working Families Act · Filed by Maggie Hassan (D-NH) · 5 cosponsors · Introduced Jan 8, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill lowers the earned income threshold for the refundable child tax credit from $3,000 to $1, effective for tax years beginning after December 31, 2025. The change allows families with nearly any earned income—even $1—to claim the full refundable credit, removing a barrier that previously excluded very low-income working families. A conforming amendment strikes an obsolete provision.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is a downward adjustment of an income threshold in the tax code, making an existing refundable credit available to a broader population of working poor. It is a straightforward tax-benefit expansion.
What the text implies
- Families with self-employment income of $1 or more (e.g., gig workers, informal economy participants) become newly eligible; the credit may reach workers previously excluded by the $3,000 floor.
- The conforming amendment (striking IRC 24(h)(6)) removes an obsolete provision; its prior function should be verified in the public statute to confirm no unintended consequence.
- Effective date is prospective (tax years after Dec 31, 2025), so no retroactive claims are triggered.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill expands a refundable tax credit to working families with very low earnings, directly increasing take-home income for the poorest working households with children. No offsetting cost to citizens is stated or implied; the mechanism is a pure expansion of an existing benefit.
Who stands to gain
- working families with children and earned income below $3,000 annually
Named in the bill
Internal Revenue Code Section 24, refundable child tax credit, Senate Committee on Finance
Where it stands
5 cosponsors: 3 Republicans, 2 Democrats.
- Jan 8, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jan 8, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on Finance · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $0 in lobbying spend. A filing names 13 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Maggie Hassan, the sponsor, reported $608,285 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Niskanen Center for Public Policy — $0 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 19, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (474 characters) on Aug 24, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 19, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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