Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a family earns its child tax credit only as its paychecks grow, so kids in lower-earning homes get part of the credit or none; and in the Center on Poverty and Social Policy's count at Columbia University, 30,000 kids in Wisconsin's 3rd District, about one in five, sit below the full amount, and the district's congressman, Derrick Van Orden, voted for the law on July 3, 2025, after his yes decided the House version.
Van Orden returned to the subject on April 16, 2026, voting for a resolution that commended the law because it would "permanently expand the child tax credit". The same law kept the child and dependent care credit nonrefundable, so its expansion passes over families who owe little income tax, and it put parents whose youngest child is 14 to 17 under SNAP's work rules, a change that reaches FoodShare families across Wisconsin.
Derrick Van Orden's Votes on the Child Tax Credit and Child Care Credit
- An Earnings Phase-In Keeps 28% of Children From the Full Child Tax Credit, Kept in the Law Van Orden Voted For and Then Voted to Commend. Derrick Van Orden voted for the final version of H.R. 1 on July 3, 2025, as it passed 218 to 214, having supplied a decisive yea for the House version's 215-to-214 passage that May. Nine months later, on April 16, 2026, his yes helped adopt H.Res. 1156, which hails the law's tax policies, the child tax credit among them. Because the credit still phases in with earnings, "more than 1 in 4 children (28%) under age 17 will be ineligible for the full Child Tax Credit," Columbia's poverty center estimates. A separate rule "strips the Child Tax Credit from the approximately 2.6 million or more children" whose parents do not have a work-eligible Social Security number on the tax return, the National Immigration Law Center found.
- A Nonrefundable Child Care Credit Steers Most of Its Benefit to Higher-Income Families, Enacted With Van Orden's July 2025 Vote. A bigger child and dependent care tax credit is part of what Van Orden voted for, but the credit stayed nonrefundable: it can only cancel income tax a family already owes, so a household with a small tax bill or none gains little or nothing. The National Women's Law Center put the share of families with children who see a larger credit at a mere 8.5 percent, while almost 80 percent of the money lands with middle- and upper-income households.
What Derrick Van Orden's Votes Mean for Families in Wisconsin's 3rd District
- One child in five in Wisconsin's 3rd District, 30,000 in all, is shut out of the full child tax credit. Columbia's poverty center finds that, under the final law, 30,000 of the district's children (21%) live in families that earn too little for the full child tax credit. Their families receive a partial credit or none, while higher-earning neighbors collect the whole amount.
- Wisconsin parents of 14- to 17-year-olds lost their exemption from SNAP's time limit. The law's SNAP rules now apply to parents whose youngest child is 14 or older, who used to be exempt; a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimate from June 2025, made for the Senate Agriculture Committee's proposal with the same change, found about 10,000 Wisconsin parents in that position facing the loss of SNAP in a typical month, and the state health department counts about 43,700 FoodShare recipients under the expanded rules overall.
- A third of Medicaid enrollees in Wisconsin's 3rd District are children whose coverage the law's cuts reach. Of the 144,000 people on Medicaid in Wisconsin's 3rd District in 2025, 47,300 were children, KFF's district data show, and their care is financed partly by the federal Medicaid funding the law reduces for Wisconsin.
Frequently Asked Questions About Derrick Van Orden on Child care and families
What is Derrick Van Orden's record on child care and families under Trump?
Derrick Van Orden voted on July 3, 2025 for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, after his vote decided the House version, and on April 16, 2026 for a resolution praising its child tax credit. Because the credit is tied to earnings, 30,000 kids in Wisconsin's 3rd District miss the full amount, Columbia's poverty center estimates, and the expanded child care credit stays nonrefundable, so most of its benefit goes to higher earners.
For a family in western Wisconsin, how much must parents earn to get the full child tax credit in the law Derrick Van Orden voted for?
In the law Derrick Van Orden voted for, each dollar a parent earns unlocks more of the credit until it tops out, and a two-parent household raising two kids has to reach $41,500 in income or more before it collects the full amount, by Columbia's poverty center's math. A western Wisconsin couple below that line receives only part of the credit.
Will a western Wisconsin family paying for daycare get the bigger child care credit Derrick Van Orden voted for?
Only if it owes enough income tax: the law Derrick Van Orden voted for left the child and dependent care credit unable to pay out beyond a family's tax bill, and the National Women's Law Center found that "families making less than $30,000 won't benefit at all" from the change.
Last updated: 2026-10-27