Monday, January 26, 2015

OBAMAnomics: Obama’s Middle-Class Blind Spot

His proposed tax credits reward two-earner families. Tough luck for the millions with a stay-at-home parent.
Guess which kind of family was left out in the cold by President Obama as he unveiled his plan to help middle-class families in his State of the Union address? The traditional two-parent family with a single breadwinner.
The president pitched his plan as part of an agenda in which “everyone gets their fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules” in part by “lowering the taxes of working families and putting thousands of dollars back into their pockets each year.” But by design or omission, his plan does virtually nothing for married families with a parent at home, usually the mother.
The president’s plan would triple the existing child-care tax credit to $3,000 for two-earner families with children under 5 and a combined income of less than $120,000, and it would establish a new $500 credit for families in which both spouses work. The plan would provide tax relief—which would no doubt help with the cost of child care, commuting, etc.—to middle-class families with both parents in the workforce. But families who choose to have a parent at home would see none of this tax relief.
The White House has trumpeted the plan’s “fairness.” But according to data from the Census Bureau, today about one-quarter of married families have a parent at home, more than one-third of married families with young children have a parent at home, and an even larger share of married families will have a parent step out of the workforce for several months to care for the children. It seems patently unfair to offer a plan targeting middle-class families that excludes such a large share of American families.
Read the rest of op-ed HERE.

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