What you need to know about the child tax credit as both campaigns embrace it

This week tax policy has gotten a star turn on the campaign trail.

Republican Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance floated the idea of more than doubling the amount of tax credits families can get from the federal government for each child.

“I'd love to see a child tax credit that's $5,000 per child, but you, of course, have to work with Congress to see how possible and viable that is," Vance said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

“President Trump has been on the record for a long time supporting a bigger child tax credit, and I think you want it to apply to all American families,” he added, no matter their income.

Vice President Kamala Harris made the child tax credit the center of a campaign speech in Maryland on Thursday.

The Harris campaign says she would restore the COVID-era policy, and families with newborn babies would get a $6,000 tax credit the first year. And her running mate Gov. Tim Walz signed into law a state-level child tax credit in Minnesota that provides eligible families up to $1,750 per child, in addition to the federal credit.

Here’s a short guide to what the child tax credit is and what changes might be coming in the months ahead.

A history with a dramatic twist

For more than a quarter century, American families have gotten money from the federal government for each child in their family.

Under President Clinton in the late 1990s, the child tax credit gave middle and upper income families $500 per child in the form of a nonrefundable tax credit. The amount and the rules about which families qualify has changed in each presidential administration since then — currently, eligible families can receive up to $2,000 per child.

There was one huge, dramatic change that, though it was only in effect