Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appears to jab at Joe Manchin for nuking child-tax-credit payments as new research shows monthly child poverty rates rising

• In a Thursday tweet, AOC criticized Joe Manchin for nuking the child-tax-credit payments.
• New research found that the monthly child poverty rate increased following the payments' end.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lambasted one of her fellow Democratic lawmakers in a Thursday tweet over the expiration of the child tax credit.

The tweet followed the release of new data from Columbia University's Center on Poverty and Social Policy that showed the monthly child poverty rate jumped from 12.1% in December to 17% in January after the expiration of the monthly child-tax-credit payments last year.

"The 4.9 percentage point (41 percent) increase in poverty represents 3.7 million more children in poverty due to the expiration of the monthly Child Tax Credit payments," the researchers wrote. "Latino and Black children experienced the largest percentage-point increases in poverty (7.1 percentage points and 5.9 percentage points, respectively)."

The government-funded COVID-19 measure expired in December after lawmakers failed to pass President Joe Biden's Build Back Better agenda, which included a renewal of the program.

"One US Senator 'heard stories' about people allegedly using the Child Tax Credit 'for drugs' without any evidence or data to back it up," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. "He then used that as justification to nuke the entire national program, causing millions of kids to fall into poverty in weeks. Horrifying."

"Meanwhile the press talks about it like it's some beltway drama without ever showing the people who are sleeping in bubble jackets with no heat or the kids going hungry waiting for some guy in a yacht to decide if they are fully human or not," the New York lawmaker added. "It's just shameful, all of it."

Biden's $1.9 trillion spending agenda was effectively tanked after Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia refused to support the package following months of contentious discussions.

The centrist Democrat took particular issue with the child-tax-credit payments, which he excluded completely from his own $1.8 trillion pitch to Biden during negotiations. For his support of the continuation of the payments, Manchin called for strict work requirements and an income cap for recipients.

He also told colleagues that parents might use the extra funds to buy drugs, people told HuffPost.

A spokesperson for Manchin previously denied Manchin's opposition to the payments.

"Senator Manchin has made clear he supports the child tax credit and believes the money should be targeted to those who need it most," Sam Runyon, the lawmaker's communications director, told Insider in December.

A representative for the senator did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment on Thursday evening.

From July to December, parents received monthly payments worth up to $250 per child ages 6 to 17 and $300 per child under 6. The program benefited more than 61 million children in more than 36 million households, Columbia said. The research suggested that by December, the payments were keeping 3.7 million kids from poverty and reducing monthly poverty by 30%.

Last month, parents told Insider they were "a little bit terrified" about what life without the "godsend" payments could look like.

"Without these payments, I won't eat so my kids can," one parent said.