The White House says it will push for permanent $300 monthly child allowance checks

• President Joe Biden wants to see his temporary child allowance become permanent.
• Chief of staff Ron Klain said ending child poverty is "an important objective for us."
• It will send up to $3,600 a year to parents with kids under 6 and up to $3,000 annually to those with kids between 6-17.

President Joe Biden wants to see the temporary expansion of the child tax credit that was passed as part of his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package become a permanent policy.

White House chief of staff Ron Klain told MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan on Sunday night that the Biden administration would "certainly" try to make the year-long expansion of the child tax credit permanent.

"Some of the policy in [the American Rescue Plan] hopefully lays a groundwork for what follows," said Klain, a longtime Biden adviser and one of the president's most influential aides. "Of course, dealing with the child poverty problem on a permanent basis is an important objective for us."

Earlier this month, Biden privately told House Democrats that he supported a permanent expansion of the child benefit, a Democratic aide with knowledge of the call told Insider. He backed a bill authored by Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington that would make the $3,000-per-child checks permanent.

The stimulus bill has transformed the child tax credit into a monthly guaranteed income for lower- and middle-income parents, a longtime Democratic priority. Under this program, millions of families will receive $300 checks beginning in July. It will send up to $3,600 a year to parents with children under six years old and up to $3,000 annually to those with kids between six and 17 years old. Checks will be sent out monthly and will gradually phase out for single parents who make over $75,000 and couples making over $150,000.

More than 10 million kids in America are currently living in poverty and the reformed child relief program is expected to lift about half of them above the poverty line and be particularly impactful for Black and Latino children.

Progressives and even some conservatives have pushed for a child allowance to reduce child poverty, improve longer-term health, education, and employment outcomes, and boost social mobility. Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican and former outspoken opponent of giving "free stuff" to poor Americans, recently proposed a child allowance that is even more generous than Biden's version.