The COVID-19 pandemic put families in the United States under financial stress. The federal government’s largest response in 2021 was the American Rescue Plan Act, which temporarily expanded the Child Tax Credit (CTC) into a large, unconditional child allowance providing monthly payments to families with children. This study investigates consumption responses to the CTC expansion using anonymized mobile-location data and debit/credit card data that track visits and spending at 1.3 million establishments across US counties. For identification, we exploit variation in the size of households’ income gains due to the CTC across counties in a difference-in-differences framework spanning January 2021 to May 2022. Counties benefiting most from the CTC expansion experienced larger increases in visits to childcare centres and health- and personal-care establishments, and increased visits to and spending per transaction at grocery and general stores. These findings suggest that the CTC expansion increased household consumption and spending on children.

COVID-19 大流行使美国家庭面临经济压力。联邦政府在 2021 年最大的应对措施是《美国救援计划法案》，该法案暂时将儿童税收抵免 (CTC) 扩大为一项大额无条件儿童津贴，为有孩子的家庭提供每月付款。本研究使用匿名移动位置数据和借记卡/信用卡数据来调查消费对 CTC 扩张的反应，这些数据跟踪美国各县 130 万家机构的访问和支出。为了进行识别，我们在 2021 年 1 月至 2022 年 5 月的倍差框架中利用了各县 CTC 带来的家庭收入增长规模的差异。从 CTC 扩张中受益最多的县的托儿中心访问量增加幅度较大以及健康和个人护理机构，以及杂货店和杂货店的访问量和每笔交易的支出增加。这些发现表明，CTC 的扩张增加了家庭消费和儿童支出。