While still subject to further changes, the legislation scheduled for a vote by the end of the week would increase the amount allowed to be deducted up to $80,000 through 2030, with the $10,000 cap returning in 2031.
Meanwhile, the infrastructure bill would provide at least $13.5 billion for the state, plus allocate billions of dollars that could be tapped to build the long-awaited Gateway Tunnel under the Hudson River.
“They’re both hugely important for us in different ways,” said Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-5th Dist.
Biden highlighted both bills during his trip to Kearny Oct. 25 and again on Monday when he signed the infrastructure legislation.
“Together with the infrastructure bill, millions of lives will be changed for the better,” Biden said at the White House.
The second bill would also for one year also extend the expanded child tax credit for lower- and middle-class families, which was part of Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus law that passed over unanimous Republican opposition.
According to a study released Monday by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive research group, the expanded credit would benefit 1.6 million children in New Jersey and lift 93,000 above the poverty line.
Another 388,400 working New Jersey adults without children would benefit from the bill’s expanded earned income tax credit, the center said.
The bill also would limit a family of four earning up to $308,575, or 2 1/2 times the state’s median income, to paying no more than 7% of their income on child care, according to the White House. Vice President Kamala Harris highlighted efforts to reduce the cost of child care when she visited the Ben Samuels Children’s Center at Montclair State University in Little Falls Oct. 8.
Also in the legislation is funding to expand health coverage, provide preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds and fight climate change, plus a permanent ban on offshore oil drilling in the Atlantic Ocean and a provision to lower the costs of prescriptions by allowing Medicare to negotiate prices for some drugs.
