Congress has until “a few days before Jan. 15” to act, Doggett said. The Build Back Better legislation would extend the more expansive version of the credit for most families for another year, ensuring payments through the midterm elections. The expanded credit would become permanent for families with little or no income.

Senator Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, said Congress could make the payments retroactive if it doesn’t pass an extension in time, but that missing the mid-January deadline would cause “disruptions.”

“It’s extraordinarily important to keep this program on track,” Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who chairs the tax-writing Finance Committee, told reporters last week.

If households lose the monthly tax credit payments and resume paying student loans, it could mean the loss of several hundreds of dollars in disposable income for many families -- all while they face rising prices because of inflation and the spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus.

“The pandemic could be with us for quite some time, and hopefully not completely stifling economic activity, but affecting our behavior in ways that contribute to inflation,” Yellen said last week at a Reuters event.

Pressure is rising on Biden to prevent federal student loan borrowers from having to resume payments on Feb. 1, after the end of a moratorium that dates to the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020.

The administration last extended the moratorium in August, affecting about 41 million borrowers, but said at the time that would be the final such extension.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Ayanna Pressley, all Democrats, on Wednesday called on Biden to pause student loan payments until U.S. employment reaches pre-pandemic levels, and to cancel as much as $50,000 in debt per borrower.

They cited an analysis they requested from the Roosevelt Institute, a nonprofit research group connected to the Franklin Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, that found resuming student loan payments would take $85 billion a year from the household budgets of about 18 million borrowers.

The moratorium has saved borrowers an average of $393 a month, Schumer said in a statement on Monday in which he also cited uncertainty around the omicron variant and calling for an extension.