[Budget of the United States Government]
[IV. Preparing For the 21st Century]
[2. Supporting Working Families]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
[[Page 57]]
2. SUPPORTING WORKING FAMILIES
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In this era of unprecedented prosperity, we still have some work . . . to do to make sure that we embrace all
Americans in this prosperity and to give every American the chance to succeed at work and at home . . . America
is a better place because our families are stronger, our children are growing up in more stable homes, and every
adult American who is willing to work has a chance to do so.
President Clinton
August 1999
----------------------------------------------------------------------
While the surge of economic growth in the past seven years has
presented a wealth of opportunities, this new economy also means that
parents work harder than ever. Many face a constant struggle to fulfill
their obligations as workers and the even greater responsibility of
doing a good job in raising their children.
From the start, President Clinton has advanced policies to strengthen
the family, in large part by helping Americans balance the twin demands
of work and parenthood. The first bill he signed into law, two weeks
after taking office, was the Family and Medical Leave Act, granting
workers the right to 12 weeks unpaid leave to care for a newborn child,
or a sick child or parent, or attend to their own serious health needs.
The President has expanded after-school programs and funding for child
care and early childhood learning including, in the past seven years,
increasing funding for Head Start by 90 percent, moving toward the goal
of serving one million children by 2002.
In the course of this Administration, the President has sought to
encourage and support work and responsibility, pillars of the family
structure. A central goal of his 1993 economic package was to make work
pay. The President's economic plan expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit
(EITC), helping 15 million low-income working families. In 1998, the
EITC lifted 4.3 million people out of poverty, more than twice as many
as in 1993. In 1996, he proposed, and signed into law an increase in the
minimum wage, followed in 1997 by the child tax credit of $500 per child
and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which
provides health insurance to the children of low-income working parents
who otherwise would not be able to afford it.
The President believes that individuals have a responsibility to work
to support their families, and government has a responsibility to reward
work. In 1996, he signed legislation to reform the Nation's welfare
system into one that requires and rewards work and responsibility. There
is now increased flexibility for States to administer work-focused
welfare programs. In order to provide support for those entering the
work force, this legislation expanded funds for child care. Significant
steps have been taken to ensure that eligible working families retain
access to food stamps and Medicaid, and to increase participation in the
Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children
(WIC). Welfare reform has also placed additional responsibility on non-
custodial parents for financial responsibility in child rearing by
strengthening child support provisions. In order to support at-risk
families and individuals, this Administration has advanced policies to
provide support for those at-risk, which can prevent a slide into
dependency.
In this budget, the President builds upon these policies that are
central to his agenda of work, responsibility, and family. The budget
expands the EITC to provide marriage penalty relief to two earner
couples, reduce marginal tax rates, and provide a higher credit to
larger families, who face a child poverty rate twice as high as families
with one
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or two children. This budget promotes early learning and improves child
care quality. It makes child care more affordable by expanding subsidies
and the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, including making it
refundable in order to help defray child care costs for low- and
moderate-income families. The budget expands 21st Century Learning
Community Centers, increases support for education of disabled children,
and expands Head Start. It also expands resources for WIC and proposes
to restore food stamps, Medicaid, and Supplemental Security Income for
certain legal immigrants. It continues efforts to move people from
welfare to work. It includes a major initiative to help former welfare
recipients and other low-income families succeed on the job and move up
the career ladder. This initiative provides competitive grants to States
and local communities that build partnerships to maximize the use of
existing resources to provide work supports and skill training. The
budget promotes responsible fatherhood, proposing tough new measures to
ensure that all parents who can afford to pay child support do so,
making sure more support goes directly to families, and making sure that
unemployed fathers who owe child support go to work and provide that
support. This new initiative is targeted at increasing the employment,
earnings, and child support payments of low-income fathers.
Increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit
The Federal Government is committed to helping those who work meet the
cost of raising their children. The EITC helps to meet this goal 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 expansion contributed to reducing the poverty rate to 12.7
percent in 1998, the lowest rate since 1979. Having implemented a series
of EITC error-reduction initiatives, including the provisions in the
Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, the President is proposing another increase
in the EITC.
The budget includes a 10-year, $23.6 billion proposal to expand the
EITC to provide tax relief for 6.8 million working families by
increasing the credit received by larger families and married couples.
The poverty rate for children in families with three or more children is
more than twice that of children in smaller families. This proposal
would increase the maximum credit for families with three or more
children by approximately $500 in order to help roughly 2.1 million low-
and moderate-income families. Approximately 5.4 million families with
two or more children would also benefit from a slower phaseout rate, so
parents could keep more of what they earn even as their earnings
increase. The proposal would also provide an average credit increase of
$250 for married two-earner couples by allowing them higher combined
earnings; a two-earner couple with children could earn up to $14,480 and
still receive the maximum credit. In addition, the proposal would
simplify the rules for measuring earned income.
Expanding Child Care Resources
The President's 2001 proposal builds on the successes of last year's
budget in which the Administration obtained $173 million to help States
improve the quality of child care, $10 million for child care research,
and an increase of $254 million for the Education Department's after-
school/summer-school program.
The budget proposes a range of further increases and new policies to
expand the accessibility, affordability, and quality of federally-funded
child care. The 2001 child care initiative would increase spending and
tax incentives by $3.3 billion over 2000 (see Table 2-1).
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Table 2-1. The Budget Supports a $3.3 Billion Increase in Resources for Child Care, 36 Percent Over 2000
(Budget authority, in millions of dollars)
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Change: Change:
1993 1999 2000 2001 1993 to 2000 to
Actual Actual Estimate Proposed 2001 2001
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spending:
Discretionary and Mandatory Budget Authority:
Child Care and Development Fund \1\............. \2\ 1,75 3,167 3,550 4,567 +2814 +1,017
3
Child Care and Development Block Grant........ 893 1,000 1,183 2,000 +1,107 +817
Child Care Entitlement to States.............. ........ 2,167 2,367 2,567 NA +200
Head Start...................................... 2,776 4,660 5,267 6,267 +3,491 +1,000
Early Learning Fund............................. ........ ........ ........ 600 +NA +600
21st Century Community Learning Centers......... ........ 200 453 1,000 +1,000 +547
College Campus-Based Child Care................. ........ 5 5 15 +15 +10
Child Care Apprenticeship Program............... ........ 4 5 5 +5 ........
Developmental Disabilities Special Projects, ........ 4 4 4 +4 ........
State Support Systems..........................
-----------------------------------------------------------
Total Spending................................ 4,529 8,040 9,284 12,458 +7,329 +3,174
Changes in Tax Expenditures:
Expansion and Simplification of Child and ........ ........ ........ 121 NA +121
Dependent Care Tax Credit \3\....................
Tax Credits for Private Employers................. ........ ........ ........ 42 NA +121
-----------------------------------------------------------
Total Changes in Tax Expenditures............. ........ ........ ........ 163 NA +163
===========================================================
Total......................................... 4,529 8,040 9,284 12,621 +7,329 +3,337
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NA = Not applicable.
\1\ Includes discretionary Child Care and Development Block Grant and mandatory Child Care Entitlement to
States.
\2\ Includes AFDC/JOBS, Transitional, At-risk, and discretionary child care programs that were consolidated into
the Child Care and Development Fund beginning in 1997.
\3\ Includes tax expenditures and effect on outlays.
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To make child care more affordable, the budget proposes an expansion
of resources for the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, tax credits
for private employers, the Child Care and Development Fund, and college
campus-based child care. In addition, it continues the existing child
tax credit and exclusion of employer contributions for child care
expenses.
Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (DCTC): The DCTC helps
approximately six million families cover their child care costs each
year. This proposed expansion will gradually make the credit refundable
so it will be available to low-income working families for the first
time. The expansion will also increase the amount of the credit for
middle-income families who are struggling to afford child care. The
budget also proposes further expansion of this tax credit to help
parents who choose to stay home to raise a young child. These proposals
would provide tax credits worth $7.5 billion over five years.
Tax Credits for Private Employers: To encourage businesses to provide
child care services to their employees, the budget proposes a new tax
credit 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. This proposal would
provide tax credits worth over $500 million over five years.
Child Care and Development Fund: Federal funding for child care has
more than doubled under this Administration, providing child care
services for 1.75 million children from low-income working families or
families mov
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ing from welfare to work in 1999. The budget would further increase
funds for the Child Care and Development Fund by $817 million, enabling
the program to provide child care subsidies for nearly 150,000
additional poor and near-poor children in 2001. These new funds will
bring the Child Care and Development Fund to a level of $4.6 billion,
with $2 billion in the Child Care and Development Block Grant and $2.6
billion in the Child Care Entitlement to States. When combined with the
child care funds provided in welfare reform beginning in 1997, the new
funds will enable the program to serve 2.3 million children by 2003, an
increase of over one million since 1997.
College Campus-Based Child Care: To encourage low-income parents to
pursue higher education, the budget includes $15 million for the Child
Care Access Means Parents in School program to establish and support
child care services on college campuses. States may also use a share of
the Child Care and Development Fund for this purpose.
Exclusion of Employer Contributions for Child Care Expenses: The 2001
Budget continues this measure, consistent with current law, permitting
parents to exclude up to $5,000 of employer-provided child care expenses
from their taxable income and Social Security earnings. The exclusion
from income tax will provide nearly $4 billion in benefits over five
years.
Tax Credit to Help Meet the Cost of Raising a Child: 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 over $93 billion in tax benefits over the next five
years, will help 26 million families with over 44 million children in
2001.
Strengthening Early Childhood Learning
The budget provides new funds to improve the safety and development of
young children, including the new Early Learning Fund, and continued
expansion of the highly successful Head Start program.
Head Start: Head Start, one of the President's highest priorities, is
America's premier early childhood development program. It supports
working families by helping parents get involved in their children's
educational lives and providing services to the entire family. Since
1993, the President has worked with Congress to increase annual Head
Start funding by 90 percent. In 2000, Head Start will serve 880,000 low-
income children, including up to 44,000 children under age three in the
Early Head Start component that the President launched in 1995.
The budget proposes to expand Head Start funding by $1 billion in 2001
and add approximately 60,000 Head Start pre-school slots and 10,000
Early Head Start slots, bringing the total number of children in Head
Start to approximately 950,000. The Administration intends to increase
participation by underrepresented groups in specifically targeted areas
with recent influxes of immigrants and limited English proficient
children, including seasonal farmworkers. The proposed increase invests
in program quality improvement measures and makes further progress
toward the President's goal of enrolling a million children in Head
Start by 2002, including doubling the number of infants and toddlers in
Early Head Start.
Early Learning Fund: Scientific research on reading compiled by the
National Academy of Sciences shows that children participating in
quality early childhood programs have significantly higher reading
achievement from third grade through eighth grade, have fewer behavior
problems, are less likely to be required to repeat a grade or to be
referred to special education, and are more likely to graduate from high
school. The White House Conference on Early Child Development and
Learning in 1997 highlighted the importance of experiences in the early
years of life to school readiness. In response, the Administration
proposed the Early Learning Fund to help improve early childhood
education for children under five years old. The budget proposes to
establish the Early Learning Fund at a level of $3 billion over five
years to provide community grants for activities that foster cognitive
development. Activities would focus on language acquisition, emergent
literacy, reading development, numeracy, and other early child
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hood education, health, and emotional development activities aimed at
improving child care quality and readiness for school. Resources could
be used to help providers obtain certification, facilitate licensing or
accreditation of child care programs, enhance provider training and
retention, and reduce child-to-staff ratios--quality factors associated
with positive developmental outcomes for young children. Grants to
States would be contingent on reporting on progress toward child care
quality goals and on children's progress toward educational goals. A
Federal evaluation would assess improvements in outcomes that result
from the Fund.
21st Century Community Learning Centers: First funded in 1997 and
expanded dramatically in 1998, this program provides grants to public
schools, in partnership with community-based organizations, to establish
and expand extended learning time opportunities.
This year, the budget proposes to more than double funding for this
program to $1 billion, in order to reach over 10,000 schools and 2.5
million students. The 21st Century Community Learning Centers are part
of a comprehensive approach to fix failing schools by providing low-
achieving students the extra help they need to meet challenging academic
standards. The budget provides sufficient funds for this program to make
after- and/or summer-school programs universally available to help turn
around all Title I schools identified as low-performing, while also
offering high quality after-school opportunities to others.
Continuing Support for other Key Programs that Assist Families
Investments in Child Care Quality: In response to the President's
request for 2000, Congress provided an additional $173 million for child
care quality activities, which supplements the $135 million that would
already have been available for these activities in 2000. Congress has
also advance appropriated another $173 million for quality activities
for 2001. States invest these dollars in improving child care quality
through activities such as resources and referrals for parents,
scholarships and training for child care providers, monitoring and
inspection of providers, networks for family day care providers, and
linkages with Head Start. The budget also requests a continuation in
2001 of the $50 million reserved in 2000 for activities to improve the
quality of child care for infants and toddlers.
Research on Child Development and Child Care: Research on child care,
and dissemination of its findings, is critical to support State and
local policy makers in their decision-making about child care and to
help parents learn how to evaluate and where to find quality child care.
At the President's request, Congress provided $10 million for new
research activities in 2000 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--and to demonstrate effective consumer education
programs and hotlines. This budget requests $10 million in continued
research funding for 2001.
National Crime Prevention and Privacy Compact: Last year, the
President and Congress worked together to pass legislation, based on a
proposal from the White House Conference on Child Care, to help build a
new electronic information sharing partnership among Federal and State
law enforcement. This legislation makes background checks on child care
providers (and other non-criminal justice checks) more efficient and
accurate by eliminating some of the barriers that have made it difficult
for States to share information about the criminal backgrounds of job
seekers.
Services for Families of Children with Disabilities: Children with
disabilities and their families face a broad range of obstacles to
achieving educational success. Ensuring that the educational needs of
the youngest children with disabilities are fully met is critical to the
Administration. (For a discussion of the Administration's work
incentives initiative for individuals with disabilities and investments
in special education programs, see Chapter 1, ``Investing in Education
and Training.'')
The budget continues a $4 million program proposed two years ago by
the President and funded by Congress to help the families
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of children with disabilities. This program provides grants to 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.
Promoting Self-Sufficiency
Improving Access to Food Stamps: For many low-income working families,
access to food stamps can keep them out of poverty. However, between
1995 and 1997, food stamp participation fell five times faster than the
poverty rate, suggesting that some working families have left the
program though they remain poor. Last year, the President took a series
of actions to ensure working families who need food stamps know how to
get access to them. These steps included launching a nationwide public
education campaign and toll-free hotline to help working families know
they are eligible for food stamps, allowing States to make it easier for
working families receiving Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF)
to own a car and still be eligible for food stamps, and simplifying food
stamp reporting rules to reduce bureaucracy and encourage work.
The budget will build upon such efforts by providing funds to improve
outreach and nutrition education to individuals who are eligible for
food stamps. The budget also proposes to help the many working poor
families for whom owning a vehicle is the one item that makes them
ineligible for food stamps. For many of these families, a car is
necessary in order to get to jobs or job training, as well as to access
essential services, such as child care, that allow them to work. The
budget proposes to make it easier for 245,000 individuals in working
families to own vehicles and receive food stamps by allowing States to
conform their food stamps vehicle policy with a more generous TANF
program.
In addition, the budget provides $565 million in food stamp benefits
for legal immigrants (see discussion later in this chapter).
Increasing Parental Responsibility Through Child Support Enforcement:
The President's campaign to ensure that parents support their children
is working. In 1998, the number of paternities established rose to
nearly 1.5 million, and child support collections have nearly doubled
since the President took office, to an estimated $15.5 billion in 1999.
In 1999, net Federal costs for child support enforcement were $1.7
billion.
The budget builds on this success by taking important, additional
steps to increase child support collections and to direct more of these
payments to low-income families. The budget expands the Administration's
Family First policy enacted under welfare reform by allowing States to
adopt simplified child support rules under which all collections made on
behalf of former welfare families would be paid to the family. This
proposal would result in an additional $815 million in child support
paid to these families over five years, improving their chances of
staying off the welfare rolls.
The budget also proposes to provide Federal matching funds for child
support that States distribute to families on welfare above States'
current efforts. Matching funds would only be available for child
support which does not reduce the family's cash benefit, resulting in an
estimated $388 million more in child support income for families on
welfare over five years. In addition, the budget would require States to
review child support orders for these families every three years,
increasing the Federal share of child support collections by $262
million through 2005.
The budget includes several new measures to increase child support
collections from parents who owe past-due child support. The budget
proposes to intercept the gambling winnings of these parents, and to
offset their Social Security and other Federal benefits to collect past-
due support. The budget would also add vehicle booting to the set of
enforcement tools available to States to bring delinquent non-custodial
parents into compliance. The budget would also deny passports to
delinquent non-custodial parents with more than $2,500 in child support
arrears, lowering the threshold from $5,000 under current law, and
prohibit them from enrolling as a Medicare provider. These proposals
would result in $669 million more paid to families
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through 2005, and would provide Federal savings of $362 million.
The budget stabilizes State and Federal funding of the child support
program. The budget improves the methodology for awarding incentive
payments to States to make these payments a more reliable funding stream
for States. The budget also conforms the Federal match rate for
paternity testing with the lower administrative match rate, resulting in
$41 million in Federal savings over five years.
Supporting Children Leaving Foster Care: An estimated 20,000 children
leave foster care each year having reached the age of 18 without being
adopted or finding another permanent relationship. Without the
financial, as well as social and emotional support that families
provide, many of these youth find themselves inadequately prepared for
life on their own. Studies that examined former foster youth two to four
years after leaving care found that only half had completed high school,
less than half were employed, and only about 40 percent had held a job
for one year or more. Of these young adults, one-fourth had been
homeless at least one night, 60 percent of the females had given birth,
and fewer than one in five were completely self-supporting. In November
1999, working together with Congress, the President secured a 50-percent
increase in funds to help former foster youth transition to adulthood,
and new authority giving States the option of providing Medicaid
coverage to these youth up to age 21. The budget proposes to increase
2000 funding for this program to $140 million, the full amount
authorized and double the amount provided in 1999, and to maintain this
higher level in 2001.
Working to End Violence Against Women: Since 1993, funding for
services to victims of domestic and sexual violence has grown by over
$400 million and the passage of the Violence Against Women Act of 1995
expanded the Government's role in supporting services and providing
scientific knowledge to prevent and treat violence against women. The
budget proposes an increase of over $20 million to further strengthen
and increase the availability of battered women's shelters and
counseling services, increase culturally appropriate services in under-
served populations, and expand resources for research and prevention
activities aimed at changing the social norms that allow this violence
to occur. These new funds will allow programs addressing violence
against women to serve an additional 30,000 women and children.
Assisting Impoverished Border Communities: The budget provides $5
million in assistance for rural, impoverished communities along the
United States/Mexico border. Almost all of the residents in these
communities are poor, and one-third receive no food assistance. These
funds will help to build partnerships that will improve the delivery of
nutrition assistance, health, and other programs to these impoverished
areas.
Restoring Equity in Benefits for Legal Immigrants
The President believes that legal immigrants should have the same
economic opportunity, and bear the same responsibility, as other members
of society. Upon signing the 1996 welfare law, he pledged to work toward
reversing the unnecessary cuts in benefits to legal immigrants that were
unrelated to the goal of moving people from welfare to work. As part of
the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, the President worked with Congress to
restore Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) to hundreds of
thousands of disabled and elderly legal immigrants. The next year, the
Noncitizens' Benefit Clarification and Other Technical Amendments Act
restored eligibility to additional legal immigrants. In response to the
Administration's request, the 1998 Agricultural Research Act restored
food stamp benefits to 225,000 elderly, disabled, and other needy
immigrants, including 70,000 children who lawfully resided in the United
States as of August 22, 1996.
Despite these gains, many legal immigrants, including disabled
individuals and families with children, remain ineligible for nutrition
assistance, health, and disability benefits. The budget provides $2.5
billion over five years to let States provide health care to legal
immigrant children and pregnant women, to restore SSI eligibility to
legal immigrants with disabilities, and to restore food stamp
eligibility to certain aged immigrants and
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to legal immigrants in families with eligible children. The SSI and
related Medicaid benefits in the budget that apply to immigrants who
entered the country after August 1996, and became disabled thereafter,
would only start after five years of residence.
Health Care: As described in Chapter 3, ``Strengthening Health Care,''
the budget would let States provide health coverage to legal immigrant
children and pregnant women under Medicaid and, in the case of children,
SCHIP. Currently, States can provide health coverage to legal immigrants
who entered the country before the welfare law was enacted. But,
immigrants who entered after the law was enacted cannot get benefits for
five years. Under these proposals, States could provide health coverage
to those children and pregnant women through Medicaid or through SCHIP.
In addition, parents of legal immigrant children who have coverage
restored would also be covered by the Medicaid/SCHIP family coverage
policy described in Chapter 3, ``Strengthening Health Care.''
Supplemental Security Income (SSI): The budget would provide
approximately $1.2 billion over five years to restore SSI and related
Medicaid to legal immigrants who entered the country after August 22,
1996, lived in the United States for more than five years and became
disabled after entry. Currently, only legal immigrants who entered the
country before August 22, 1996, can be found eligible for SSI disability
benefits.
Food Stamps: As mentioned earlier in this chapter, the budget provides
$135 million over five years to ensure that legal immigrants in the
United States as of August 22, 1996, who are eligible for food stamp
benefits may receive them once they reach age 65. In addition, the
budget builds on the progress made in the Agricultural Research Act by
providing $430 million over five years to restore benefits to adult
legal immigrants who were residing in the United States before August
22, 1996, and are currently living with eligible children.
Continuing Support for Working Families
The Administration is committed to policies that encourage the
transition from welfare to work, and, once that transition has been made
with success, supporting the efforts of working families so that they
will stay in the work force and move forward (see Table 2-2).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Table 2-2. The Budget Includes $290 Billion Over Five Years in Support for Families with Children Through the
Tax System
(In millions of dollars)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Estimate
1993 --------------------------------------------- Total
Actual 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2001-2005
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tax Expenditures
Existing Law: \1\
Earned Income Tax Credit 2, 3................ 12,400 29,935 31,193 32,162 33,445 34,746 161,481
Child Tax Credit 2......................... ....... 20,000 19,475 18,615 17,985 17,275 93,350
Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit......... \4\ 2, 2,360 2,330 2,305 2,275 2,250 11,520
559
Exclusion of Employer Contributions for ....... 700 725 765 805 850 3,845
Child Care Expenses.........................
Proposed Legislation:
Expand and Simplify the Earned Income Tax ....... 2,308 2,240 2,281 2,318 2,340 11,487
Credit 2, 5.................................
Expand and Simplify the Child and Dependent ....... 121 589 922 2,715 3,144 7,491
Care Tax Credit 2, 6........................
Tax Credits for Private Employers for Child ....... 42 88 121 140 148 539
Care Expenses...............................
----------------------------------------------------------------
Total...................................... ....... 53,270 56,640 57,171 59,683 60,753 289,713
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Does not include interaction effects between provisions.
\2\ Includes tax expenditures and effect on outlays.
\3\ Excludes credit for workers who do not live with children.
\4\ Calendar year actual for 1993.
\5\ Includes an expansion of the credit for families with three or more children, a slower phaseout of the
credit for families with two or more children, marriage penalty relief for two-earner couples, and
simplification of the earned income definition.
\6\ Includes an expansion of the credit for families with earnings below $60,000, a phase-in of refundability,
and assistance for stay-at-home parents of infants.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Helping Families Move from Welfare to Work: The President has led
successful efforts to help millions of families make a successful
transition from welfare to work.
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF): The President signed
the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act
(PRWORA) in 1996, and States have refocused their welfare systems to
support work. Welfare caseloads have fallen by over five million since
President Clinton signed the welfare reform law, and by over 50 percent
since he took office, to their lowest level in 30 years. Moreover,
recent data from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey show an
82-percent increase in the rate of employment for individuals leaving
welfare since 1992.
Welfare-to-Work (WtW) Grants: Because of the President's leadership,
the 1997 Balanced Budget Act included $1.5 billion in 1998 and 1999 for
a new Welfare-to-Work grants program. WtW provides grants to States and
local communities to help long-term, hard-to-employ welfare recipients,
and certain non-custodial parents, secure lasting, unsubsidized
employment. Grantees may spend their funds for up to three years after
receipt.
Funds are used for job creation, job placement, job retention,
training, and other post-employment support services. Working closely
with Congress, the Administration secured critically needed changes to
WtW's eligibility requirements. The streamlined eligibility criteria
will allow WtW to use existing resources to more effectively help long-
term welfare recipients and non-custodial parents of low-income children
work and support their children. To allow grantees to fully implement
these program improvements, the budget proposes a two year extension of
the period of time in which existing funds can be spent.
To build on the investments and partnerships begun under the Welfare-
to-Work program and the Workforce Investment Act, this budget proposes
an additional $255 million for Fathers Work/Families Win, including
[[Page 65]]
a $10 million set aside to provide grants to Indians.
Fathers Work/Families Win: This initiative includes $125 million for
Fathers Work to put non-custodial parents (mainly fathers) who owe child
support to work and help engage them in the lives of their children. As
part of this effort, States will need to put in place procedures to
require more non-custodial parents--whether their child is on welfare or
not--to pay child support or go to work. The remaining $120 million will
be dedicated to Families Win to help low-income parents stay in their
jobs, move up the career ladder, and remain off cash assistance.
Competitive grants would be awarded to business-led State and local work
force boards who demonstrate strong partnerships with community based
organizations, faith based organizations, public entities such as
Medicaid, food stamps, child support enforcement, TANF, and child care
resources, transportation agencies, public housing authorities, and
postsecondary schools. Families Win will provide resources for case
management and skill training for low-income families to ensure
retention, advancement, and long-term success in the work force through
improved access to training and food stamps, Medicaid, child care, and
other critical support for eligible working families. Families Win
includes $5 million to finance improved information and access for low-
income families through the One-Stop delivery system to the range of
existing work supports and services such as food stamps, Medicaid, and
the EITC.
Welfare-to-Work Transportation: One of the biggest barriers facing
people who move from welfare to work--in cities and in rural areas--is
finding transportation to get to jobs, training programs and child care
centers. The President's leadership on this issue helped secure funding
through 2003 to assist States and localities in developing flexible
transportation alternatives, such as van services, for welfare
recipients and other low-income workers. The budget proposes to double
funding to $150 million for this program in 2001.
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Welfare-to-Work Housing Vouchers: In the 1999 Budget, the President
proposed $283 million for 50,000 new housing vouchers for welfare
recipients who need housing assistance to get or keep a job, and
Congress approved full funding for this new initiative. Families will
use these housing vouchers to move closer to a new job, to reduce a long
commute, or to secure more stable housing to eliminate emergencies that
keep them from getting to work every day on time. The budget proposes
$183 million for an additional 32,000 vouchers, bringing the total
number of welfare-to-work vouchers to 82,000 in 2001.
Individual Development Accounts (IDAs): Since 1992, President Clinton
has supported the creation of IDAs, savings accounts to help low-income
workers buy a first home, finance postsecondary education, or start a
new business. The President signed into law in 1998 legislation
providing $10 million to get the program off the ground. The budget
provides $25 million for IDAs. The Administration will propose
legislation to allow low-income workers' families to use IDAs to save
for a car that helps them get or keep a job.
Social Services Block Grant (SSBG): SSBG supports an array of critical
services to more than nine million low-income children and adults. The
budget proposes to fund the SSBG at $1,775 million in 2001, an increase
of $75 million over the authorized level to maintain funding at the 2000
level. Of this amount, $25 million will be available to support second
chance homes for unmarried teen parents and their children who cannot
live at home or with other relatives. The basic SSBG grant provides
funding to States to support a wide range of programs including child
protection and child welfare, child care, and services focused on the
needs of the elderly and the disabled. The inherent flexibility of this
grant permits States to target funds to meet the specific needs in their
communities.
Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and
Children (WIC): The Administration has continued to target resources to
low-income infants and children. WIC, for example, reached over 7.3
million persons each month in 1999. Funding in 2000 is sufficient to
serve 7.4 million women, infants, and children, and the budget proposes
$4.1 billion to serve 7.5 million people by the end of 2001, fulfilling
the President's goal of full participation in WIC. (See Chapter 3,
``Strengthening Health Care'', for more information on WIC.)
Providing 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. In addition, the President has proposed an
innovative way to allow States to provide partial wage replacement for
parents who need to take leave to care for a newborn or recently adopted
child.
Expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA): In early 1993, the
President proposed, and Congress enacted FMLA, which allows covered
workers to take up to 12 weeks of job-protected, unpaid leave to care
for a newborn 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.
The President continues to support expansion of FMLA to reach workers in
firms with 25 or more employees, extending coverage to almost 12 million
more workers.
Making family leave more affordable: Many workers face barriers to
taking advantage of unpaid leave. A 1996 Study found that loss of wages
was the most significant barrier to parents taking advantage of unpaid
leave following the birth or adoption of a child. To address the
existing barriers, the President's budget provides $20 million for
competitive planning grants to States and other entities to explore ways
to make parental leave and other forms of family leave more affordable
and accessible for American workers. This initiative would enable States
and others to identify the workers who need financial assistance to take
parental leave or other forms of family leave and to evaluate and
develop options to aid these workers.
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Ensuring equal pay: The budget includes $27 million for the
President's Equal Pay Initiative, an increase of $12 million over 2000.
The initiative requests $10 million for the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) to provide training and technical assistance to about
3,000 employers on how to comply with equal pay requirements and to
launch a public service announcement campaign on wage issues. The
initiative also dedicates $10 million in the Department of Labor (DOL)
to train women in nontraditional jobs including high-tech jobs and other
skill shortage occupations. Lastly, the initiative provides $7 million
for DOL to help employers assess and improve their pay policies, support
public education efforts, provide for projects in nontraditional
apprenticeships, and implement industry partnerships.
Increasing the minimum wage: In 1996, the President successfully
sought a minimum wage increase that gave a big financial boost to full-
time, full-year minimum wage workers, raising the pay of each by
approximately $1,800 a year. In November 1999, the President reiterated
his support to further raise the minimum wage to $6.15 an hour by the
beginning of 2001. Increasing the minimum wage by one dollar in two
equal steps simply restores the real value of the minimum wage to what
it was in 1981. More than 10 million workers would benefit under this
proposal. This increase will help ensure that as costs continue to
increase, parents who work hard and play by the rules can bring up their
children out of poverty. The President remains strongly committed to
increasing the minimum wage and will work with Congress to ensure the
enactment of this vital increase.