Biden Cares For Families

 We previously talked about Biden's impressive and compassionate 2024 budget (here and here) that emphasized supporting families, increasing taxes on billionaires and corporations, stimulating the economy, increasing good jobs, and reducing the deficit.

Let's take a further look at how Biden's budget helps families:

• Cuts Child Care Costs

• A new proposal to enable States to increase child care options for more than 16 million young children and lowers costs so that parents can afford to send their children to high-quality child care.

• The Budget also provides $9 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant, an increase of nearly $1 billion, to expand access to quality, affordable child care for families across the Nation. In addition, the Budget expands a tax credit to encourage businesses to provide child care benefits to their employees.

• Who is helped by this budget item - this budget item obviously benefits children, parents and businesses.  If parents have access to affordable quality child care then that relieves their worry about their kids, helps them to consistently work and maintain employment.  The kids get increased socialization and age appropriate education.  Businesses get consistent employees.

• Expands Access to Free, High-Quality Preschool

• The Budget also funds a Federal-State partnership that provides high-quality, universal, free preschool to support healthy child development and ensure children enter kindergarten ready to succeed. Through this partnership, the Budget would dramatically expand access to high-quality preschool, making it available to all of the approximately four million four-year-old children in the United States.

• In addition, the Budget helps young children enter kindergarten ready to learn by providing $13.1 billion for Head Start, an increase of $1.1 billion over the 2023 enacted level, including funding to boost wages for Head Start personnel to help address staff shortages and prevent classroom closures.

• Finally, the Budget includes $500 million for demonstration grants to create or expand free, high-quality preschool in school or community-based settings for children in high poverty areas.

• Who is helped by this budget item - "The benefits of high-quality child care can be seen in many different areas. High-quality child care helps children be more successful in school, and has shown improved health and increased earning outcomes over children’s lifetimes.  Having improved student success, improved health and earning outcomes shows the returns and importance of investing in early childhood. When we invest in high-quality early childhood programs, it helps make sure that we are providing the best opportunities for children to grow and learn."  This may be even more important in high poverty areas where other socioeconomic factors are heavily stacked against children and families.

• Lowers Home Energy and Water Costs

• The Budget provides $4.1 billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), building on the $13 billion provided in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to reduce energy bills for families, expand clean energy, transform rural power production, and create thousands of good-paying jobs for people across rural America.

• Since the Low Income Household Water Assistance Program (LIHWAP) expires at the end of 2023, the Budget proposes to expand LIHEAP funding and allow States the option to use a portion of their LIHEAP funds to provide water bill assistance to low-income households.

• Who is helped by this budget item - Who doesn't want lower home energy and water costs ?  The IRA helps families change their appliances and HVAC systems to much more efficient systems that are good for the environment and good for your wallet.  The IRA also simulates new industry and provides good paying jobs in the clean economy. 

• Improves College Affordability

• To help low- and middle-income students overcome financial barriers to postsecondary education, the Budget proposes to increase the discretionary maximum Pell Grant by $500, providing over 6.8 million students with money for college. This request builds on successful bipartisan efforts to increase the maximum Pell Grant award by $900 over the past two years, and lays out a path to double the award by 2029.
• Who is helped by this budget item - Yep, college can be incredibly expensive.  Families have to start saving early in the child's life and you pray there will be enough.  Every little bit helps.

• Expands Free Community College

• The Budget invests mandatory funding to expand free community college across the Nation. To lay the groundwork for this program, the Budget includes $500 million in a new discretionary grant program to provide two-years of free community college for students enrolled in high-quality programs that lead to a four-year degree or good paying jobs. In addition, the Budget provides mandatory funding for two years of subsidized tuition for students from families earning less than $125,000 enrolled in a four-year Historically Black College and University (HBCU), Tribal College and University (TCCU), or Minority-Serving Institution (MSI).

• Who is helped by this budget item - Approximately 30% of those attending community college eventually transfer to 4 year institutions.  Also, community college students who transfer to the most competitive colleges have a higher graduation rate (76%) than their non-transfer counterparts (75.5%), suggesting that once they're accepted, they can and do succeed.  "Thirty years ago, people might have thought community college transfer students represented a risk to colleges," said Giuseppe Basili, executive director of the Cooke Foundation, in a conversation with BestColleges. "They're actually among the least risky students possible because of their ambition and the track record they bring to the table." 

• Increases Food Security by Providing Critical Nutrition Assistance

• As called for in the National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition and Health, the Budget provides over $15 billion to allow more States and schools to leverage participation in the Community Eligibility Program and provide healthy and free school meals to an additional 9 million children. The Budget also includes $6.3 billion to support the 6.5 million individuals expected to participate in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).

• Who is helped by this budget item - Good nutrition for early childhood development (ECD) is essential.  Healthy foods (including breast milk at birth) helps with brain and neurological developmental, building bone and muscle, providing energy for active kids who sprout like weeds, aids in psychological development and actually promotes learning in school.  Good nutrition "sets the table" for health and success in the rest of the child's life.  It can help avoid childhood obesity and potential for diabetes and other obesity related diseases later in life.  For more information read this paper - The Importance of Nutrition for Development in Early Childhood from Kaitlyn Sue Suha at California State University - San Bernardino.
• What else has Biden and the Democrats done for children ?  

• The Child Tax Credit Under the American Rescue Plan Act - Congress expanded the Child Tax Credit for one year (2021) in the American Rescue Plan Act enacted in March 2021. The maximum credit amount increased from $2,000 to $3,600 per child under age 6 and to $3,000 per child aged 6-17 (including 17-year-olds for the first time).  

• Combining full refundability, extended eligibility for 17-year-olds, and the larger credit amount, the expanded Child Tax Credit drove child poverty sharply downward in 2021, when it reached a record low of 5.2 percent, according to Census Bureau data. It kept roughly 2.1 million children above the poverty line ― including an estimated 752,000 Latino children, 649,000 white children, 524,000 Black children, 89,000 American Indian and Alaska Native children, and 56,000 Asian children ― and lessened differences in poverty rates between children of all races and ethnicities.

• More than 90 percent of families with lower incomes used their monthly payments to buy food, pay utility bills, make rent or mortgage payments, buy clothing, and cover education costs.