David Lidsky's Blog, page 334

Both Harris and Trump support raising the child tax credit. Who would qualify?

For all its economic prosperity, childhood poverty remains pervasive in the United States.

Never before in a presidential election cycle has there been so much discussion of the child tax credit—a tool many Democrats and Republicans have endorsed as a way to lift children and young families out of poverty.

Just three years ago, child poverty rates fell significantly when President Joe Biden’s administration raised the child tax credit and made even the poorest families eligible. But the expansion only lasted a year. Congress declined to renew it.

There is hope for another increase in the tax credit, regardless of who wins Tuesday’s presidential election, but tension remains over who should qualify.

Democrats seek a massive—and costly—expansion of the social safety net. Vice President Kamala Harris has pitched a major increase to the child tax credit as part of her presidential campaign. Rather than providing the benefit through a tax refund, she wants to send monthly payments to parents, even those who aren’t working and pay no income tax. Republicans have expressed support for increasing the tax credit but also concern that for some parents, it could become an incentive not to work.

For all its economic prosperity, childhood poverty remains pervasive in the United States. Children under 5 are the age group most likely to encounter poverty and eviction, and more than one in six young people under 18 live below the federal poverty line. Meanwhile, it’s getting more expensive to raise a child, with the cost of groceries, child care and housing going up.

“Expanding the child tax credit is the single most effective option on the table for reducing child poverty in America,” said Christy Gleason of Save the Children, a global humanitarian organization focused on the well-being of children. “Families are demanding it. Voters are demanding it.”

Currently, the child tax credit gives families a $2,000 discount on their tax bill for every child under the age of 17 in their care. Families that pay less than $2,000 in income tax get a smaller benefit, and parents who are out of the workforce get none.

Harris has made expanding the tax credit central to her campaign’s messaging on the economy. Her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, has a resume that includes passing a state child tax credit.

Former President Donald Trump doubled the amount of the child tax credit during his administration. His presidential campaign declined to provide specifics on his plans for the child tax credit except to say he would weigh significantly increasing it.

Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, raised the possibility of increasing the child tax credit to $5,000 so that more parents can stay home with their children in an interview on CBS’ Face the Nation. But some Republicans have been leery about expanding it to parents who are not working outside the home.

After voting down a child tax credit bill in August, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said for stay-at-home parents the benefit amounts to “cash welfare instead of relief for working taxpayers.”

The stakes of that debate are high for parents who are unable to work because of a disability, or because they are caring for children or elderly parents. Many have been excluded from the benefit because they are not earning income.

Kandice Beckford, 25, is among those. She was a medical assistant at Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C., last year when her pregnancy made her too sick to work, forcing her to quit.

She was homeless even when she was earning a paycheck, bouncing between the homes of friends and relatives. When she left the hospital after giving birth in April, she still had no permanent place to stay. There was little she could do except connect with social service agencies—and pray.

“I’m a godly woman, so I really tried to leave most of that in God’s hands,” Beckford said. “It was worrisome, but I tried not to let it overpower my life and my thinking.”

Beckford’s story underscores the financial precarity many families—and single mothers in particular—face in raising children. If she doesn’t return to work this year, she won’t qualify for any benefit.

The Harris proposal would make every household eligible regardless of income, providing $6,000 in benefits to families with newborns and $3,600 for each child after that. She wants to pay it out in monthly payments so families would not have to wait for a tax return. Harris plans to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans to pay for the plan, in part by allowing tax credits adopted under the Trump administration in 2017 to expire.

As president, Trump doubled the child tax credit from $1,000 to $2,000 and raised the income cap, allowing families earning up to $400,000 to receive the benefit. The child tax credit passed under his administration will expire at the end of next year. If the next Congress and president do not act, the credit will fall back to $1,000 a child.

In 2021, as part of his American Rescue Plan, President Joe Biden expanded the credit to $3,000 per child—and $3,600 for children under the age of 6—and made it available to every household with citizen children, regardless of their income. It cut child poverty in half by one measure. But those gains were erased when it expired.

In September, Beckford finally got into a shelter for women and their children in Maryland and was connected with a social service agency that has helped her with many of the expenses a new baby brings, including a stroller and car seat, clothing and toys.

When asked about her dreams for her daughter Inari, Beckford ticked off a list: She wants Inari to be smarter than her and to get “the best education there is to have.” Inari is already exceeding her development milestones, and Beckford is relishing in her growth.

Her last wish was something that sounded basic, but has proven elusive for Beckford and so many other American mothers.

“I want her to have a stable life,” Beckford said.

Are Florida’s devastating hurricanes enough to make residents move out of state?

If moves into the state offer any answer, then hurricanes have served little as deterrents.

The news rippled through Treasure Island, Florida, almost like a third storm: The mayor planned to move off the barrier island a month after Hurricane Helene flooded tens of thousands of homes along the Gulf Coast and two weeks after Hurricane Milton also ravaged the state.

Mayor Tyler Payne’s home had been flooded and damaged beyond repair, he explained in a message to Treasure Island residents, and he and his husband can’t afford to rebuild. He also was stepping down as mayor.

“While it pains my heart to make this decision in the midst of our recovery from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, this is the best decision for me and my family,” Payne, who had held the office for more than three years and was a fourth-generation Treasure Island resident, said Monday.

Up and down Florida’s storm-battered Gulf Coast, residents are making the same calculations about whether they should stay or go. Can they afford to rebuild? What will insurance cover? People considering moving to Florida are contemplating whether it’s worth the risk to come to a hurricane-prone state.

These existential questions about Florida’s appeal are raised regularly after the state experiences a busy hurricane season, such as in 2004, when four hurricanes crossed the Sunshine State.

If moves into the state offer any answer, then hurricanes have served little as deterrents. Florida’s population has grown by one-third to 23 million residents in the two decades since Charley, Frances, Jeanne and Ivan ravaged the state. Last year, Florida added more than 365,000 residents, second only to Texas among states.

On the other hand, there are signs that Florida’s white-hot real estate market has cooled. Sales of single-family homes were down 12% in September compared with the same time in the previous year. But interest rates, rising home prices and skyrocketing insurance costs likely played bigger roles than the recent hurricanes.

“Florida recovers much faster than you think,” said Brad O’Connor, chief economist for Florida Realtors.

How AI helped Apple sell $46 billion worth of iPhones

Apple’s fiscal fourth-quarter report showed iPhone sales totaled $46.22 billion for the July-September period, a 6% increase from the same time last year.

Apple snapped out of a recent iPhone sales slump during its summer quarter, an early sign that its recent efforts to revive demand for its marquee product with an infusion of artificial intelligence are paying off.

Sales of the iPhone totaled $46.22 billion for the July-September period, a 6% increase from the same time last year, according to Apple’s fiscal fourth-quarter report released Thursday. That improvement reversed two consecutive year-over-year declines in the iPhone’s quarterly sales.

The iPhone boost helped Apple deliver total quarterly revenue and profit that exceeded the analyst projections that sway investors, excluding a one-time charge of $10.2 billion to account for a recent European Union court decision that lumped the Cupertino, California, company with a huge bill for back taxes.

Apple earned $14.74 billion, or 97 cents per share, a 36% decrease from the same time last year. If not for the one-time tax hit, Apple said it would have earned $1.64 per share—topping the $1.60 per share predicted by analysts, according to FactSet Research. Revenue rose 6% from last year to $94.93 billion, about $400 million more than analysts forecast.

But investors evidently were hoping for an even better quarter and appeared disappointed by an Apple forecast that implied its revenue for the October-December quarter covering the holiday shopping season might not grow as robustly as analysts envisioned. Apple’s stock price shed about 2% in Thursday’s extended trading, leaving the shares hovering around $221—well below their peak of about $237 reached in mid-October.

The latest quarterly results captured the first few days that consumers were able to buy a new iPhone 16 line-up that included four different models designed to handle a variety of AI wizardry that the company is marketing as “Apple Intelligence.” The branding is part of Apple’s effort to distinguish its approach to AI from rivals such as Samsung and Google that got a head start on bringing the technology to smartphones.

Even though the iPhone 16 was specifically built with AI in mind, the technology didn’t become available until Apple released a free software update earlier this week that activated its first batch of technological tricks, including a feature designed to make its virtual assistant Siri smarter, more versatile, and more colorful. And those improvements are only available in the U.S. for now.

“This is just the beginning of what we believe generative AI can do,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told analysts during a Thursday conference call.

Cook said plans to expand the AI iPhone features into other countries in December, as well as roll out other software updates that will inject even more of the technology in the iPhone 16 and two high-end iPhone 15 models that are also equipped with the special computer chips needed for the slick new features. The December expansion will include an option to connect with OpenAI’s ChatGPT to take advantage of technology that Apple isn’t making on its own.

Investors are betting that as Apple’s AI becomes more broadly available, it will prompt the hundreds of millions of consumers who are using older iPhones to upgrade to newer models in order to get their hands on the latest technology.

“We believe it’s a compelling upgrade reason,” Cook asserted. But Investing.com analyst Thomas Monteiro believes iPhone sales would already be accelerating at a faster pace if consumers were blown away by Apple’s AI technology, increasing the pressure on the company “to do an overall better job to impress the public.”

Former Disney employee arrested for hacking servers, manipulating food menus

The company says the attacks on Walt Disney World’s servers cost the company at least $150,000.

A former worker hacked servers at Walt Disney World after being fired in order to manipulate computer menus by changing prices, adding profanities and altering notifications to wrongly declare some items as safe for people with allergies, according to a federal criminal complaint.

The former employee was arrested last week following an investigation by the FBI. His court-appointed attorney, David Haas, said Thursday that his client intended to plea not guilty once a formal indictment has been filed. In the meantime, he was being held in jail until at least a bond hearing set for next week.

In a motion seeking his release, Haas said that his client had struggled with mental health issues since childhood and was currently seeing a psychiatrist.

Amazon’s health business is coming into focus

Please don’t say the company is trying to fix healthcare. But it’s melding its pharmacy, in-person, and virtual services into something that feels, well, Amazonian.

In November 2021, Neil Lindsay was named to head Amazon’s health business. It wasn’t because of his medical expertise. He didn’t have any. “The reason I’m in this job is because I know how to build things in Amazon,” says Lindsay, who had spent 11 years at the company in marketing roles relating to Prime, devices, and other areas at the time of his appointment.

How Trump’s garbage truck stunt became a dumpster fire online

The former president put together a splashy stunt to highlight Joe Biden’s ‘garbage’ gaffe. It does not seem to have gone over the way he intended.

Political fortunes can change swiftly, especially at the bitter end of a contentious election. One day, a candidate might be at the top of the heap; the next, they’re down in the dumps.

Diwali gains recognition in the U.S.

With Pennsylvania making it a state holiday and NYC schools giving students the day off, the Festival of Lights is gaining more U.S. recognition than ever in 2024.

This year Diwali, known as the Festival of Lights, will take place in the U.S. on Thursday, October 31. (The full festival is five days long, and Diwali falls on the third day.) The Indian national holiday is celebrated by Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and Buddhists.

Another hit to Humane: More than 10,000 chargers recalled due to fire hazard

After low sales numbers and a pileup of returns, Humane issues a recall on Ai Pin chargers over concerns that their lithium batteries may overheat.

Today, the embattled AI-wearable-building company Humane has taken yet another blow to its already bruised reputation. 

70% of companies will use AI for hiring in 2025, says new study

According to a new survey from Resume Builder, companies are increasingly relying on AI tools to conduct interviews, with 24% saying they currently use AI for the ‘entire interview process.’

When recruiters are tasked with wading through hundreds or thousands of applications for an open position, they often rely on AI-powered tools to screen résumés and make the hiring process more manageable. These tools have only grown more popular in recent years, with more than half of companies currently using artificial intelligence technology in their hiring process.

One of America’s biggest cable TV companies wants out of the cable TV business

In a sign of the growing challenges facing traditional pay television, Comcast is looking to spin off its linear cable networks to focus on streaming and broadband.

After years of investor anticipation, Comcast Corp. is now exploring the potential to spin off its cable networks into a separate entity, Comcast president Mike Cavanagh revealed Thursday during an earnings call. The parent company of NBCUniversal is also considering new partnerships in streaming.