State CTC and EITC
MI: The Cost of Living Refund
04. 15. 2019
Providing a cost-of-living bump to Michiganders and boosting local economies
This fact sheet originally appeared in the Michigan League for Public Policy.
The Cost-of-Living Refund is an enhanced and modernized version of our state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Michigan’s current EITC—at just 6% of the federal credit—provides a huge help to working families struggling to make ends meet by boosting after-tax incomes, pulling Michigan families above the poverty line, and delivering long-lasting benefits to children in these families. The Cost-of-Living Refund would build on these benefits by providing larger credits to more families, modernizing the definition of work, and including people who work but who are left out of the EITC, including caregivers and young workers without kids. It would also make the credit more user-friendly, for example, by making it available on a monthly basis to recipients and making it easier for people to file for the credit.