Supporting Rural Workers: Creating Community-Designed Approaches for Federal EITC Uptake

In North Carolina, four out of five eligible tax filers receive the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a refundable tax credit for low-income workers. This means that roughly one million taxpayers are putting those critical funds, up to a maximum of over $6,900, back into their pockets. It also means that some eligible taxpayers are still missing out. Research on barriers to claiming the tax credit tends to focus on urban communities, with little attention to what keeps rural filers from claiming the credit.

Supporting Rural Workers: Creating Community-Designed Approaches for Federal EITC Uptake presents the results of a mixed-methods study on EITC uptake in seven rural counties in North Carolina. Working closely with local community leaders, researchers gathered data from interviews and focus groups to identify some of the reasons that eligible tax filers do not claim the credit and to inform strategies for increasing participation in the EITC program.

This is one of three reports produced by this project, which was generously funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The study was carried out by a research partnership between MDC Rural Forward, the Jordan Institute at the UNC School of Social Work, the ncIMPACT Initiative at the UNC School of Government, and Together Transforming Lives Inc.