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OCR Page 1 of 88newborn or adopted child, attend to their own serious health needs, or care for a seriously ill
parent, child or spouse -- without fear of losing their job or health insurance. Under current law,
workers are eligible for FMLA coverage only if they work at a business with 50 or more
employees and if they have worked at least twelve months and 1,250 hours for the employer.
(Today, about 67 million Americans -- over half of all workers -- are covered by the FMLA.
Senator Dodd proposed lowering the threshold to businesses with 25 or more employees, and
Senator Kennedy champions a proposal to lower the threshold to 10. While the President has
consistently referenced his support for expanding the FMLA benefit, the Administration has not
formally presented a proposal in this area. We recommend advancing a specific proposal to
lower the FMLA threshold to 25 or more workers, expanding coverage for up to ten million
more American workers. No budget implications.
Parent Education and Support Fund. The White House Conference on Early Childhood
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Development and Learning spotlighted the critical importance of children's earliest years of life
focus
to their development and later success in life. Parents play the central role in providing children
with developmentally appropriate stimulation and attention during these years. In addition,
studies have revealed the promise of home-visitation programs to reduce child abuse and support
can we put
children's development. We propose the creation of a competitive grant program administered
an
by HHS to fund parent education and support programs, including the development or expansion
1
of home visitation programs, efforts to educate and engage parents in child care and other efforts
to improve child care quality, and the establishment of "second chance maternity homes" to
support teen mothers and teach parenting skills. This fund would support programs such as
HIPPY, Parents as First Teachers, home visitation, and other parenting education programs.
Cost: $500 million over five years.
Tax Relief for Parents, Including Parents who Stay at Home. The following are a series of
proposals that would benefit families in which a parent stays at home (all estimates are rough and
preliminary). We are currently exploring a variety of iterations of each proposal, but will settle
on only one proposal. Also note that these proposals interact differently with an expanded Child
and Dependent Care Tax Credit, and therefore, the selection of one of these policies will be
informed by our decision on the DCTC. Options:
Senator Roberts
a. Expand the Child Tax Credit. The Child Tax Credit is currently $500 per child for children
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under 17. We propose to double the credit to $1,000 per child for those children under the age of
three. The Child Tax Credit begins to phase out for taxpayers whose adjusted gross income
exceeds $110,000 each year ($75,000 if not married). Cost: Roughly $11 to $13 billion over 5
at
stay
years. Another option is to double the credit for families with children under the age of two,
which would cost roughly $4 billion over five years.
families?
b. Increase the Standard Deduction. Most lower-income families (incomes of less than $50,000)
do not itemize their deductions, choosing to take the standard deduction (and using the simpler
Dwnat income ranges help.
form) instead, while most higher income families choose to itemize. Therefore, a proposal to
expand the standard deduction for children would help lower-income families. In FY 2000, the
standard deduction will be roughly $7,400 for married couples, and $6,500 for heads of
do
households. We could increase the standard deduction by $1,500 for families with children for
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