(The Center Square) – Gov. Josh Shapiro announced Monday that the Working Pennsylvanians Tax Credit included in the new state budget will be available to residents filing for the 2025 tax year.
That means anyone who qualifies for the federal Earned Income Tax Credit is eligible to receive 10% of that sum in their state tax returns.
Shapiro told Widener University law students, “This is probably one of the more easy tasks you’re going to have to deal with as you’re helping people fill out their taxes because all you have to do to qualify for this relief is to file your taxes.”
Widener is one of many locations throughout the state where Pennsylvanians can go to complete their taxes with the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, or VITA, program. United Way Capital Region Volunteer Center Director Heidi Neuhaus said that after testifying before the legislature in favor of the credit said the change can be “life-changing for the community that we serve.”
By the numbers, the credit can be up to about $800 for low-income workers, also known as ALICE households or Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. The credit is expected to return about $193 million to Pennsylvanians this year.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Christina Sappy, D-Kennett Square, said seeing it through to the end required support from both sides of the aisle as well as resources from within the community.
Yet, even as Democratic leadership celebrated the win, they were quick to lay the blame for widespread economic instability on Republican policies, highlighting tax breaks for billionaires and policies thinning the social safety net.
“Please, policy makers, stop punching down on working families,” implored Rep. Justin Fleming, D-Harrisburg. “People every day are struggling, trying to make it, yet we hear these stories of folks who supposedly are not doing anything at home playing video games, and get all these government benefits. I have never in my life encountered somebody like that. These folks are trying to get by. They are working their tails off each and every day.”
For Shapiro, shepherding a divided legislature toward consensus has only been half the battle of his third year in office. Since President Donald Trump was inaugurated, the governor has spent much of his time sparring with the administration over policy and funding.
“We recognize that federal policies are the primary driver of those rising costs we’re seeing at the grocery store and in our communities, and that is specifically as a result of the tariffs coming from the administration in Washington,” said Shapiro, noting that Friday’s roll-back amounted to an admission of responsibility for the prices. “But you see here in Pennsylvania, we don’t dwell on just what’s happening in D.C., we focus on what we can do at the state level to address those rising costs.”
Legislators who stuck with the bill throughout the session recounted stories from their own lives and those of their constituents to demonstrate the importance of the benefit while families are struggling to make ends meet.
Lt. Gov. Austin Davis acknowledged he was “more fortunate than most” while lamenting the high cost and low availability of childcare he encountered when accessing daycare for his two-year-old daughter, Harper.
House Speaker Rep. Joanna McClinton, D-Philadelphia, who championed the bill, weighed in, “I know I’m not by myself when I am at the gas pump or in the supermarket, checking the prices and making up the additions as I go along to see if I can stay on my own budget and I don’t have many mouths to feed.”
Karen Showalter, Pennsylvania Director for advocacy group Moms Rising, said, “So many of our members tell us that even though they’re working hard and caring for their families, they still can’t get ahead financially. More are juggling paid work while also caring for young kids or aging parents or often both and struggling to make all the pieces fit together that keep their families afloat.”
Sen. Patty Kim, D-Dauphin, emphasized that there was much more the legislature could do to help families get by, specifically by raising the state’s minimum wage. It has sat at the federal minimum of $7.25 since 2009, well below each of the state’s neighbors. Advocates in the legislature have been pushing for an increase for over 15 years.
Raising the wage, Kim said, would cost the state nothing, while the new tax credit costs $193 million.
“We can help folks two different ways,” said Kim. “Next year, let’s do both.”
