Report: “Build Back Better Act” Will Produce $10,900 in Savings & Tax Cuts for a Typical Hawaiʻi Family

A new report from the non-partisan think tank, Third Way, has found that key provisions of President Biden’s Build Back Better Act will produce $10,900 in tax cuts and savings for a typical two-parent family of four in Hawaiʻi and $17,200 in tax cuts and savings for a single mother with two kids in Hawaiʻi.

According to the Democratic Party of Hawaiʻi, the study analyzed four key provisions of President Biden’s Build Back Better Act: the Child Tax Credit, child care cost caps, the expanded Affordable Care Act premium cost caps, and closing the Medicaid coverage gap, and applied it to six distinct, but typical families in each state and the District of Columbia:

• A family of four earning the “two-parent with child” median income in that state, 50% of that median, and 150% of that median; and
• Single-parent families of three earning the median income in that state for single mothers, 50% of that median, and 150% of that median.

For consistency, the report assumed that each family had two children, aged two and seven, which allows values to be estimated for the child care cost caps and Child Tax Credit, both of which are dependent on a child’s age. 

For Hawaiʻi families, the Third Way report found the benefits to be as follows:

The majority of these benefits for Hawaiʻi families are due to the provision in the Build Back Better Act which determines the maximum share of a family’s income that they will be required to pay for eligible child care expenses.

The Third Way report also suggests that the Build Back Better Act could produce savings and tax cuts that go well beyond the report’s estimates. The report did not include the benefits families could receive such as universal Pre-K if they had a 3- or 4-year-old child, new housing subsidies, or SNAP benefits, among many others. The report also did not include data for workers with no children who may also benefit from a higher Earned Income Tax Credit. 

“Too many Hawaiʻi families have been struggling to make ends meet, even before the COVID-19 pandemic. We want middle-class Hawaiʻi families to know that additional relief is on its way through the Build Back Better Act to help with child care, medical bills, and more,” said Tyler Dos Santos-Tam, Chair of the Democratic Party of Hawaiʻi in a press release.