WASHINGTON, DC - On the heels of last week’s legislative hearing on universal paid leave and guaranteed access to child care, Ways and Means Democrats today released a video highlighting the Building an Economy for Families Act, their groundbreaking proposal to strengthen the care economy and support working families. The plan provides universal paid family and medical leave, guaranteed access to child care, and permanent extensions of the American Rescue Plan’s expansions of the Child Tax Credit (CTC), Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC).
Ways and Means Democrats understand that a lack of paid leave and inadequate access to affordable, quality child care were problems that existed for working families in the United States long before the pandemic struck. The COVID crisis exacerbated those barriers to participation in the economy and underscored the need for substantial federal action.
The Building an Economy for Families Act:
* Provides all U.S. workers with up to 12 weeks of comprehensive paid family and medical leave that would replace two-thirds of wages for a typical worker;
* Increases funding for the Child Care Entitlement to States to $10 billion per year and indexes it to grow with inflation and child population;
* Establishes a Child Care Information Network (CCIN) for parents and caregivers to access current information about available child care slots that meet their needs;
* Provides a new refundable payroll tax credit for child care providers to raise wages of child care workers;
* Creates a new Worker Information Network (WIN) to assist workers in connecting to paid leave, unemployment insurance benefits, and child care; and
* Invests $15 billion in the physical infrastructure of child care facilities.
Watch Ways and Means Democrats’ video on the proposal here.
Read a one pager on the plan here, section-by-section summary here, and full text of the discussion draft here and here.
