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E C O N O M I C R E P O R T O F T H E P R E S I D E N T

Economic Report of the President - The American Presidency Project

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parents are employed or single-parent families where the parent worksoutside the home; an additional 10 million children are in married-couplefamilies where only one parent is employed. This has led to strong demandfor quality programs to ensure that children are safe and learning during thehours when they are not supervised by a parent. In fact, experts estimate thatduring a typical week at least 5 million school-age children spend timeunattended at home. This Administration has responded to this situation byincreasing its investment in after-school and summer programs from $40million in 1998 to $453 million in fiscal 2000. The President has called fora doubling of this investment in fiscal 2001.ConclusionThe American family in the 21st century faces a different world and a differentset of challenges than the family of 100 years ago. The twin problemsof scarce time and scarce resources are not, of course, new, but their manifestationsin our turn-of-the-millennium economy may well be. Thanks in partto greater participation of women in paid employment, families today enjoya much higher standard of living than did families a century ago. But expectationsalso appear to be different today. Great changes in the economy haveopened up great opportunities as well as great challenges. As people aspire totake advantage of those opportunities, changes in workplace arrangementsand well-designed Federal policies can help them overcome the challenges.Chapter 5 | 197

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