[originaltext] Compared to most high-income countries, child poverty is an e

Compared to most high-income countries, child poverty is an epidemic in the United States. It creates conditions that may elevate stress hormone levels and impair brain development. Poor children in the US are one and a half times more likely to die and twice as likely to be hospitalized as their middle-class counterparts.
    So my colleague Dr. Michael Hole and I started asking moms about money. We knew we needed to reimagine what a doctor’s visit looks like, to get kids out of poverty and to give them a fair shot at a healthy life.
    Our questions led to a surprising solution: tax credits. It turns out, the earned income tax credit, or EITC, is the best poverty prescription we have in the U.S. The average mom gets two to three thousand dollars a year from it. When families get it, moms and babies are healthier: fewer depressed moms, babies weighing more at birth. But one out of five families who could get it doesn’t, and most who do lose hundreds of dollars to the for-profit tax-preparation industry.
    One day, a mom asked us why we couldn’t do her taxes while she waited for the doctor. We all know that purgatory. Why not make good use of that time? So we started StreetCred, an organization prescribing tax preparation in clinics serving kids. This is a brand-new approach and one that left some questioning our sanity. After all, we’re doctors, not accountants. But we have something accountants don’t: access to families.
    Over 90 percent of kids in the US see a doctor at least once a year. Their parents trust us and will do anything to give them a better life. Doctors in every clinic around the country could be doing this work, too—it’s simple, really. The hospital registers as a tax-preparation site, and everyone, from medical students to retirees, can volunteer as a tax preparer after passing an IRS exam. I certainly never thought I would be doing other people’s taxes, but here I am.
    We’re nearing the end of our third year. In the first two, we returned 1.6 million dollars to 750 families in Boston alone. This year, we’ve expanded to nine sites in four states. Sixty-three percent of our families have never heard of the EITC. How can you claim something you haven’t heard of? And half have never used free tax preparation.
    Question 16. What is the difference between American poor children and those from middle-class family?
    Question 17. What is the effect of the earned income tax credit on American families?
    Question 18. What do we learn about the current state of StreetCred?