Some 39 million households, including almost 90 percent of the nation's children, are set to receive the payments, the Treasury Department says, marking the country’s first-ever child allowance... As part of their March stimulus package, Democrats radically expanded the nearly 24-year-old child tax credit, especially for low-income families, increasing it to as much as $3,600 per child from $2,000. They also transformed it from a credit taken once a year at tax time into one people can take piecemeal each month. Emboldened by the government’s success in sending multiple rounds of stimulus checks to a huge swath of the country during the Covid pandemic, the initiative is designed to provide the poor, in particular, with a steady stream of income to help with unexpected expenses throughout the year.