Discussing her father’s recently unveiled proposals on child care and maternity leave, Ivanka Trump called it a “very comprehensive” plan that’s “long overdue”.
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Trump is also expected to propose incentives for employers to provide child-care options at work.
Donald Trump visited a key political area Tuesday – the Philadelphia suburbs – to pitch a plan on paying for child care, ideas addressed largely to suburban women voters. For many families in our country, child care is now the single largest expense – even more than housing. He did so with his daughter Ivanka Trump, an energizing force behind the policy, and behind him.
In fact, Maya Harris, Clinton’s senior adviser for policy, said that by focusing exclusively on leave policies that benefit women, Trump may actually be hurting their cause, contributing to the attrition of women from the workplace after childbirth and the gender pay gap. Trump proposed guaranteeing six weeks of paid maternity leave for women whose jobs do not already provide it for them.
Neither Trump nor his campaign offered an estimate of the cost of his proposal, but the campaign said it would pay for the six weeks of maternity leave offered to mothers by eliminating fraud in the unemployment insurance program.
Clinton is calling for 12 weeks of paid leave for men as well as women (double what the Trump campaign suggests), universal pre-K, and a cap on child care costs.
And yet another senior policy aide to Hillary, Jacob Leibenluft, claimed that other elements of Trump’s proposals for child-care costs – including plans to allow families to deduct such costs and the creation of new child-care savings accounts – disproportionately benefit the wealthy.
Donald Trump’s eldest daughter stood by his side as he formally rolled out his child care and maternity plan Tuesday night. Individuals earning more than $250,000 and joint filers earning more than $500,000 wouldn’t qualify, the campaign said.
Ivanka Trump describes in our pages today her father’s child care plan, which would let parents “deduct from their income taxes child care expenses for up to four children, as well as for elderly dependents”. And Trump has been trying to soften his image among college-educated women who have been reluctant to support a candidate who has made many derogatory remarks toward women.
“It would definitely work for Ivanka, but not for most American families”, Martin said. These new accounts are available to everyone, and allow both tax-deductible contributions and tax-free appreciation year-to-year-unlike current law Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs), which are available only if it is offered by an employer and does not allow balances to accumulate.
The timing of the announcement also raised questions.
To assist lower-income parents, the government would match half of the first $1,000 deposited per year. Trump’s plan recognizes the importance of the family in society and the importance of children to future economic growth.
Clinton, meanwhile, proposes that no family should spend more than 10 percent of its income on child care.
“We need working mothers to be fairly compensated for their work, and to have access to affordable, quality child care for their kids”, Trump said in Aston, Pennsylvania. “Instead of asking those at the top to pay their fair share, he’s robbing Peter to pay Paul by raiding unemployment insurance funds, and giving the most to the wealthy while providing far less relief to middle-class and working families”. On Tuesday, her campaign released a statement slamming Trump’s proposals.
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Rep. Kevin Brady (R., Texas), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said he hadn’t reviewed details of Mr. Trump’s plan, saying only that the nominee’s overall tax package “is very close to the House Republican blueprint”.
