Trump said, “By recapturing fraud and improper payments in the unemployment insurance program, we can provide six weeks of paid maternity leave to any mother with a newborn child whose employer does not provide the benefit”.
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Trump is also expected to propose incentives for employers to provide child-care options at work.
Trump proposed the child care initiative weeks ago but now has broadened the plan after criticism that his first proposal failed to address the needs of women and families who make little money.
Ivanka Trump called the proposals “long overdue” changes for an “inaffordable, inaccessible child care system that we now have in place that’s failing American families”.
Mr. Trump is to be accompanied by his daughter Ivanka, who helped craft the child-care proposal and who spoke about the issue at the July Republican convention.
The guaranteed maternal-leave benefit, which Trump aides said would cost about $2.5 billion a year, would be indirectly paid by employers through the unemployment-insurance program. Clinton promises 12 weeks of paid family leave under her proposal, both to new fathers and mothers.
Trump’s plan would “allow a family to make the choice of whether a parent should work outside the home or not without bias from the tax code”, and would “ensure stay-at-home parents receive the same tax deduction as working parents, offering compensation for the job they’re already doing”, the campaign said in a statement. While this proposal is mostly being discussed as a tax break for childcare expenses, importantly, these deductions will also be available to families that do not use paid daycare arrangements.
Trump laid out plans to create “Dependent Care Savings Accounts” that would allow families to set aside money to look after children or elderly parents.
Ivanka Trump, 34, a top executive at the Trump Organization, has three children with Jared Kushner, a real estate developer and publishing mogul who hails from a prominent New Jersey political family and is also one of the candidate’s top advisers.
Ivanka Trump, 34, told Megyn Kelly, 45, on the evening of September 13 while appearing on “The Kelly File” that the USA must “catch up with the times” and offer guaranteed paid maternity leave.
Cutting social safety net programs has been a core mission of Republican leaders for decades, and prominent conservatives including House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) have argued that it would be too costly for the federal government to support national paid family and sick leave. His rival, Hillary Clinton, has been campaigning as a champion of children. “Safe, affordable high-quality childcare should not be the luxury of a fortunate few”.
For elderly dependents, the accounts could be used to help pay for services including in-home nursing and long-term care. Clinton believes Democrats can improve child care quality by raising mandatory minimum wages for workers in the industry.
Also consider that Hillary Clinton has spent many years of her life advocating for children and engaging in efforts to improve their lives and assisting the parents of young children.
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Less than 60 days to go before election day, Donald Trump presented a far-reaching childcare policy, the centerpiece of which is a government-mandated six-week paid family leave for mothers but not fathers. Clinton’s plan includes the Respect and Increased Salaries for Early Childhood Educators (RAISE) initiative, which “will fund and support states and local communities that work to increase the compensation of child care providers and early educators”.
