New Jersey Senator Cory Booker is calling on Congress to expand the Child Tax Credit, which expired last year, following new data from the Census Bureau showing that child poverty dropped to a record low in 2021 in large part as a result of the expanded Child Tax Credit.

“Today’s Census data confirms that the expanded Child Tax Credit worked: it allowed the hard work of tens of millions of parents to pay off and helped them keep up with the cost of living, dramatically reducing child poverty and hunger,” Booker said in a joint statement with several other senators.

“We should have never allowed this critical program to lapse, and we should not extend corporate tax breaks at the end of this year without also extending the expanded Child Tax Credit,” the senators added.

According to the Census Bureau, the child poverty rate fell from 9.7 percent to 5.2 percent between 2020 and 2021, a 46 percent decline in a single year.

The child poverty rate is now the lowest on record.

The expanded Child Tax Credit — $3,600 a year for children under 6 and $3,000 for those 6-17 — expired on December 31, 2021.

An earlier attempt this year by Congress to expand the credit for 2022 failed in the Senate after the House passed a 10-year, $1.75 trillion bill.

The credit was not included in the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act.

In New Jersey, the state Legislature passed their own version of a Child Tax Credit earlier this summer, which will provide $500 per child under the age of 6.