[Budget of the United States Government]
[V. Preparing For the 21st Century]
[2. Supporting Working Families]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


 
                     2.  SUPPORTING WORKING FAMILIES

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  My friends, for centuries, over two now, the American Dream has represented 
a compact that those who work hard and play by the rules should be able to 
build better lives for themselves and for their children. In this time, 
and even more into the future, child care that is too expensive, unsafe or 
Unavailable will be a very stubborn obstacle to realizing that dream. So let 
us commit ourselves to clearing the obstacle, to helping parents fulfill their 
most sacred duty, to keeping the American Dream alive for them and most 
important, for their children.                                                                                                                             President Clinton
                                            October 1997 
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  The President has worked hard to improve the lives of working 
families, financially and otherwise.
  The new Child Credit, coupled with a major expansion of the Earned 
Income Tax Credit (EITC) in 1993, provides significant tax relief for 
working families that are trying to raise their children and make ends 
meet. The Child Credit will help 26 million families a year, while the 
EITC expansion is already helping 15 million. Together, the Child Credit 
and the EITC will provide nearly $250 billion in tax relief from 1999 to 
2003. In addition, the minimum wage increase that the President 
successfully sought gives a big financial boost to full-time, full-year 
minimum wage workers, raising the pay of each by $1,800 a year.
  Other new policies enable parents to meet their families' health needs 
without risking their jobs, to change jobs without risking their health 
insurance, and to find health insurance for their children when they 
could not otherwise afford it. The Family and Medical Leave Act allows 
workers to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a newborn or 
adopted child, or to attend to their own health needs or those of a 
seriously ill family member. The Health Insurance Portability and 
Accountability Act protects an estimated 25 million Americans a year, 
allowing them to switch jobs without losing their health insurance. The 
self-employed and those with pre-existing conditions also will have an 
easier time finding and keeping their health insurance. The new 
Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), enacted as part of the 1997 
Balanced Budget Act (BBA), will enable millions of low-income working 
families to more easily find health insurance for their children.
  Nevertheless, one major area remains in which working families need 
more help--child care. For one thing, parents need more help when it 
comes to purchasing child care. For another, when they go to work, they 
should know that their children are in safe, healthy environments. By 
helping parents manage the twin demands of work and family, the 
President's Child Care Initiative, with its array of new benefits, is 
the logical next part of his agenda for working families.
  In addition, the President proposes to address the problems faced by a 
particular group of working families--legal immigrants. The budget would 
restore Food Stamps to 730,000 legal immigrants, and let States provide 
health insurance under Medicaid and CHIP to the children of legal 
immigrants. As the President said at the time, the provisions of the 
1996 welfare reform law that stripped legal immigrants of basic safety 
net protections were not only harsh and unnecessary, they also had 
nothing to do with the fundamental goal of welfare reform--to move 
people from welfare to work while protecting children.

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Expanding Child Care

  In 27 million families, both parents work or a single parent works. 
But, many of them who want safe, quality child care cannot find it or 
cannot afford it. As part of welfare reform, the Administration worked 
with Congress to increase spending on major child care programs by $4 
billion over six years. With important new initiatives to make safe, 
quality child care more available and more affordable, the budget 
proposes $5.3 billion in tax incentives and $16.1 billion in new 
spending authority over five years--$2.7 billion in total assistance in 
1999 alone (see Table 2-1).
  The Child Care Initiative is designed to address the most important 
needs of working families: more affordable child care for middle- and 
low-income families; more safe sites for children after school and 
before parents come home; much greater enforcement of minimum health and 
safety standards for child care providers; better-trained child care 
providers; new help for families to use the latest research findings on 
early childhood development; and a strong research program on which to 
build for still better services.

  More Affordable Child Care: The President proposes to make child care 
more affordable by expanding the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit for 
middle-income families with child care costs, providing tax credits with 
which businesses can expand their child care resources, and increasing 
funds with which the Child Care and Development Block Grant can help 
more poor and near-poor children.
  Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit: The Child and Dependent Care Tax 
Credit helps about six million families cover their child care costs 
each year. The budget proposes to expand the credit so that it offers 
more help for three million families with incomes below $59,000, 
providing nearly $5 billion in aid over the next five years.
  Tax Credits for Private Employers: To make child care services more 
widely available, the budget proposes $500 million in tax credits over 
five years for private employers that expand or operate child care 
facilities, train child care workers, contract with a child care 
facility to provide child care services to employees, or provide child 
care resource and referral services to employees.
  Child Care and Development Block Grant: Federal child care funding has 
risen by nearly 70 percent under this Administration, providing child 
care services for over a million
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------

                     Table 2-1.  $21 BILLION OVER FIVE YEARS IN NEW RESOURCES FOR CHILD CARE                    
                                            (In millions of dollars)                                            
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                            Estimate                            
                                                         ---------------------------------------------   Total  
                                                            1999     2000     2001     2002     2003   1999-2003
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spending:                                                                                                       
Discretionary Budget Authority:                                                                                 
  21st Century Community Learning Centers Increase......      160      160      160      160      160       800 
  Provider Scholarship Fund.............................       50       50       50       50       50       250 
  Standards Enforcement.................................      100      100      100      100      100       500 
  Research..............................................       30       30       30       30       30       150 
  Apprenticeship........................................        5        5        5  .......  .......        15 
  Head Start Increase...................................      305      642      827    1,020    1,020     3,814 
  State Support Systems.................................        5        5        5        5        5        25 
Mandatory Budget Authority:                                                                                     
   Early Learning Fund..................................      600      600      600      600      600     3,000 
                                                                                                                
Receipts from Tobacco Legislation:                                                                              
   Child Care and Development Fund Supplement...........    1,155    1,280    1,400    1,600    2,065     7,500 
                                                                                                                
Tax Expenditures:                                                                                               
  Expansion of Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit......      256    1,192    1,078    1,125    1,163     4,814 
  Tax Credits for Private Employers.....................       38       77      108      124      131       478 
                                                         -------------------------------------------------------
    Total...............................................    2,704    4,141    4,363    4,814    5,324    21,346 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------

[[Page 63]]


children from low-income working families or whose parents are moving 
from welfare to work. The budget would increase funds for the Child Care 
and Development Block Grant by $1.2 billion in new authority, to a total 
of $4.3 billion in 1999, and by $7.5 billion over the next five years, 
enabling the program to provide child care subsidies for 600,000 more 
poor and near-poor children in 1999. These new funds, combined with the 
child care funds provided in welfare reform, will enable the program to 
serve another million children over five years.

  New Emphasis on Early Learning: The budget provides funds for various 
activities to improve the safety and well-being of young children, 
including a new Early Learning Fund that grew out of the White House 
Conference on Early Childhood Development and Learning and the highly 
successful Head Start program.
  Early Learning Fund: The Early Learning Fund responds to the new 
scientific research presented at the White House Conference on Early 
Child Development and Learning in April 1997, indicating that a child's 
experiences in the first three years of life profoundly affect his or 
her brain development. The budget proposes $3 billion in spending 
authority over five years for the Fund, which would provide grants to 
communities for activities that improve early childhood education and 
the quality and safety of child care for children under five years old. 
For example, the money could go for parent education in child 
development, for helping child care providers become accredited, for 
home visits, and for reducing child-to-staff ratios in child care, as 
well as for innovative efforts to meet the developmental needs of 
children.
  Head Start: Head Start, among the President's highest priorities, 
supports working families by helping parents get involved in their 
children's lives and providing services to the entire family. Since 
1993, the President has worked with Congress to increase annual Head 
Start funding by 57 percent. In 1998, Head Start will serve 830,000 low-
income 



[[Page 64]]

children, including up to 40,000 children under age three in the Early 
Head Start component that the President launched in 1995. The budget 
proposes to add 20,000 to 26,000 regular Head Start slots and 10,000 
Early Head Start slots in 1999, making further progress toward the 
President's goal of enrolling a million children in Head Start by 2002. 
The budget also would expand Head Start funding by $3.8 billion over 
five years, providing $4.7 billion in 1999 and doubling the number of 
slots in Early Head Start by 2002 (see Chart 2-1).

  School-Age Care: The President worked with Congress to expand 21st 
Century Community Learning Centers, enabling 400 schools in 1998 to open 
their doors before the school day begins or keep them open after the 
school day ends. The budget proposes a further expansion, and a 
requirement for matching funds, so that about 4,000 school-community 
partnerships across the country can implement before- and after-school 
programs. Instead of returning to empty houses, or playing on unsafe 
streets, up to 500,000 more children would be able to participate in 
safe, drug-free programs that combine learning, enrichment, and 
recreational activities. The budget proposes $800 million in new funds 
over five years, for a total of $1 billion.
  Safety and Quality: The budget proposes to increase funds to help 
States enforce child care quality standards, and the President calls 
again for Congress to pass legislation to improve the safety of children 
by making it easier for States to conduct background checks on child 
care workers.
  Standards Enforcement: Research and experience in the military child 
care program show that diligent enforcement of standards dramatically 
improves quality. The budget proposes $500 million over five years to 
help States enforce State and local child care health, safety, and 
quality standards. States would be able to help license and accredit 
child care providers and centers, increase unannounced inspections of 
child care centers and family day care homes, and develop local report 
cards that rank child care providers.
  National Crime Prevention and Privacy Compact: The President has sent 
important legislation to Congress to improve the quality of child care 
and protect children's safety. This legislation--the National Crime 
Prevention and Privacy Compact--would make background checks on child 
care providers more efficient and accurate by eliminating State barriers 
to sharing criminal histories for non-criminal purposes.

  More and Better Training for Child Care Staff: The budget proposes 
$250 million over five years for a new Child Care Provider Scholarship 
Fund, which the President announced at the White House Conference on 
Child Care. Along with State and local matching funds, the Scholarship 
Fund would provide over $300 million in scholarships over the next five 
years for up to 250,000 child care providers--improving the quality of 
child care for over half a million children. This proposal would boost 
the pay of providers who receive training and reduce the problem of high 
turnover by requiring that they stay in the field for at least a year. 
In addition, the budget would expand an apprenticeship program to 
finance the training of child care providers.
  The Fund builds on the President's historic achievements over the last 
five years to promote lifelong learning, which include securing the 
largest increase in Pell Grant college scholarships in over 20 years, 
creating Hope and Lifetime Learning Tax Credits, expanding College Work-
Study, creating the Direct Lending program that lets students repay 
their loans as a share of their income, and launching AmeriCorps to 
enable young people to earn money for college while serving their 
country. Every individual who needs financial support for postsecondary 
education can get it through these programs.

  Families of Children with Disabilities: The budget proposes $5 million 
to help the families of children with disabilities. This new program 
would provide grants for States to expand and modify their State-wide 
support systems to help these families address such problems as 
inadequate child care options, missed job training and job 
opportunities, the loss of medical assistance, and teen pregnancy.

[[Page 65]]

  Research on Childhood Development and Child Care: Research on child 
care, and its dissemination, is critical for policy makers to make 
decisions about child care and for parents to know where to find quality 
child care and what to look for. The budget proposes $150 million over 
five years for a new Research and Evaluation Fund, which would provide 
consumer education, parent hotlines, and research activities to expand 
our knowledge of good policies and practices, including the types of 
child care settings, parent activities, and provider training that most 
benefit the early development of children. This fund would also support 
a National Center on Child Care Statistics as well as demonstration 
projects to test approaches to help new parents who choose to stay home 
with their newborns or newly adopted children.

Restoring Equity in Benefits for Legal Immigrants

  The President believes that legal immigrants should have the same 
opportunity, and bear the same responsibility, as other members of 
society. Upon signing the 1996 welfare law, he pledged to work toward 
reversing the harsh, unnecessary cuts in benefits to legal immigrants 
that had nothing to do with the goal of moving people from welfare to 
work. As part of last year's BBA, the President worked with Congress to 
restore Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) to hundreds of 
thousands of disabled and elderly legal immigrants.
  Due to the 1996 law, however, many legal immigrants still cannot get 
Food Stamps and access to health care, including such vulnerable groups 
as families with children, people with disabilities, the elderly, and 
refugees and asylees. The budget provides $2.7 billion over five years 
to restore Food Stamps to vulnerable groups and to let States provide 
health care to the children of legal immigrants.

  Food Stamps: For legal immigrant families with children, the budget 
would restore benefits without regard to when they entered the United 
States. For the elderly or people with disabilities, the budget would 
restore benefits to those who entered before Congress enacted the 
benefit cuts--similar to how the President and Congress restored 
Medicaid and SSI to legal immigrants last year. For refugees and 
asylees, the budget would lengthen their exemption to the Food Stamp ban 
from five to seven years. The Nation admits refugees and asylees for 
humanitarian reasons, and many may need more time to naturalize than the 
law allows. The budget also would exempt from the ban Hmong refugees 
from Laos who immigrated to the United States after the Vietnam conflict 
and certain Native Americans living along the Canadian and Mexican 
borders.
  Health Care: The budget would let States provide health coverage to 
legal immigrant children under Medicaid and CHIP. Currently, States can 
provide health coverage to immigrant children who entered the country 
before the welfare law was enacted. But, immigrant children who entered 
after the law was enacted cannot get benefits for five years. Under this 
proposal, States could provide health coverage to those children through 
Medicaid or through their current CHIP allotment.

Continuing Support for Working Families

  The Child Care Initiative and the proposals to restore benefits to 
legal immigrants build on a strong base of support for working families, 
which the President has worked with Congress to achieve over the past 
five years. That support includes a broad array of tax incentives to 
encourage and support work as well as legislation to, among other 
things, enable workers to care for a newborn and fulfill other family 
responsibilities; raise the minimum wage; enable workers to retain their 
health insurance; and provide health insurance to up to five million 
uninsured children. (For the broader discussion of the health care 
expansions, see Chapter 3, ``Strengthening Health Care.'')

  Support Through the Tax System: Over the last five years, the 
Administration has worked with Congress to expand the number and size of 
tax incentives to encourage work and support working families (see Table 
2-2).
  EITC: As an important part of moving people from welfare to 
          work, the Federal Government can help ensure that those who 
          work can support their children. The EITC, a tax credit that 
          Congress created over 20 years ago, helps to meet this goal

[[Page 66]]

          by supplementing the earnings of working families. In his 1993 
          economic program, the President proposed, and Congress 
          enacted, legislation to substantially expand the credit, 
          helping 15 million low-income working families. The EITC will 
          provide $150 billion of tax benefits over the next five years.
  Child Credit: The Child Credit, which the President proposed 
          and Congress enacted as part of the 1997 Taxpayer Relief Act, 
          helps working parents raise their children by providing $500 
          per child for all children under age 17. The credit, which 
          will provide $98 billion in tax benefits over the next five 
          years, will help 26 million families with over 40 million 
          children.
  Exclusion of Employer Contributions for Child Care Expenses: 
          The law lets parents exclude up to $5,000 of employer-provided 
          child care expenses from their taxable income and Social 
          Security earnings. The exclusion will provide over $5 billion 
          in benefits over five years.
  Tax Incentives for Work: The budget proposes to extend through 
          April 30, 2000 the Welfare-to-Work Tax Credit, which the 
          President and Congress created as part of the Taxpayer Relief 
          Act of 1997. It focuses on those who most need help--long-term 
          welfare recipients--by letting employers claim a tax credit on 
          the first $10,000 a year of wages that they pay, for up to two 
          years, for workers they hire who were long-term welfare 
          recipients. The credit is 35 percent on the first year's 
          wages, rising to 50 percent on the second year's wages. In 
          addition, the budget would extend through April 30, 2000 the 
          Work Opportunity Tax Credit, which provides a credit of 40 
          percent on the first $6,000 of wages paid to members of eight 
          more target groups.

  Better Benefits in the Workplace: The President has led successful 
efforts to ensure a living wage for all American workers while expanding 
their ability to care for their families and protect their health care 
benefits.
  Family and Medical Leave: In early 1993, the President 
          proposed, and Congress enacted, the Family and Medical Leave 
          Act, which allows workers to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid 
          leave to care for a new-
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------

               Table 2-2.  $270 BILLION OVER FIVE YEARS IN SUPPORT FOR FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN \1\               
                                            (In millions of dollars)                                            
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                       Estimate                                 
                                          1997  ------------------------------------------------------   Total  
                                         Actual    1998     1999     2000     2001     2002     2003   1999-2003
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tax Expenditures                                                                                                
Existing Law:                                                                                                   
  Earned Income Tax Credit \2\........   27,218   27,867   28,481   29,184   29,984   30,810   31,673    150,132
   Child Tax Credit \3\...............  .......    3,592   19,714   19,926   19,679   19,471   19,170     97,960
   Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit    2,515    2,510    2,510    2,505    2,500    2,500    2,495     12,510
   Exclusion of Employer Contributions                                                                          
   for Child Care Expenses \3\........      860      910      950      995    1,040    1,085    1,135      5,205
                                                                                                                
Proposed Legislation:                                                                                           
   Expand Child and Dependent Care Tax                                                                          
   Credit.............................  .......  .......      256    1,192    1,078    1,125    1,163      4,814
  Eliminate Household Maintenance Test                                                                          
   for Dependent Care Tax Credit......  .......  .......       10       67       71       74       78        300
  Administrative Improvements and                                                                               
   Simplification \4\.................  .......  .......     -118     -177     -181     -185     -189       -850
                                       -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Total.............................   30,593   34,879   51,803   53,692   54,171   54,880   55,525    270,071
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Does not include interaction effects between provisions.                                                    
                                                                                                                
\2\ Includes effects on individual income taxes only.                                                           
                                                                                                                
\3\ Includes tax expenditures and effect on outlays.                                                            
                                                                                                                
\4\ Includes simplification of EITC foster child definition, clarification of the tiebreaker rule under the     
  EITC, and clarification and expansion of math-error procedures.                                               

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------

[[Page 67]]

born or adopted child, attend to their own serious health needs, or 
care for a seriously ill parent, child, or spouse--making it less 
likely that employees will have to choose between work and family.

  Minimum Wage: By 1996, the value of the minimum wage had 
          neared a 40-year low. That year, however, the President worked 
          with Congress to raise the minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.15 an 
          hour in two steps, over two years. The first step, a 50-cent 
          increase, took effect in October 1996; the second, a 40-cent 
          increase, took effect 11 months later, on September 1, 1997. 
          The 90-cent raise means $1,800 a year in higher earnings for 
          full-time, full-year minimum wage workers. Millions of other 
          low-wage workers making somewhat more than the new minimum 
          also will benefit if employers raise their paychecks in step 
          with the minimum wage increase--as they have done in the past.
  Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act: Working 
          with Congress, the President in 1996 pushed through landmark 
          legislation, known as HIPAA, which provides important health 
          insurance protections for an estimated 25 million Americans 
          who move from one job to another each year, as well as those 
          who are self-employed or who have pre-existing medical 
          conditions. HIPAA reformed the private insurance market to 
          ensure that workers have portable health benefits and insurers 
          are less able to deny coverage due to pre-existing conditions. 
          Combined with the Taxpayer Relief Act, HIPAA also made it 
          easier and cheaper for self-employed persons to get health 
          insurance.