In light of the failure of the enhanced child tax credit to be extended, one low hanging fruit that could provide some level of comfort to anxious households would be to simply make current tax refunds a monthly deposit, rather than an annual all-at-once windfall.

Much research has been done on people’s innate tendency to manage money worse if they receive a windfall as opposed to a steady chunk of smaller amounts of money over time

The Enhanced Child Tax Credit has proven the effectiveness of simple direct deposits or monthly checks from the IRS

Changing tax refunds to be distributed monthly throughout the following year, rather than in lump sum, would need zero change to government budgets nor require anything else new that isn’t already in place.