BUDGET

THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2017 43
vides MSHA the resources it needs to meet
its statutory obligation to inspect every mine
and address the risks posed to miners by the
Nation’s most dangerous mines.
MAKING THE 21 ST CENTURY ECONOMY WORK FOR WORKERS
The economy and the Nation’s workforce have
changed significantly since the 1930s when
many core worker protections and benefits, like
unemployment insurance, were first established.
Today, women are almost twice as likely to be in
the workforce as they were eight decades ago and
the issues of the intersection of work and family
are more widely recognized. New industries
and ways of organizing work continue to emerge.
As the nature of work continues to evolve, it is
important that we update key worker benefit
structures to ensure that workers in the 21 st
Century economy can balance work and family
obligations, save for retirement, and are protected
during temporary periods of unemployment
and upon return to work.
Helping Workers Balance
Work and Family
Expanding Access to Quality Child Care
for Working Families. The Budget reflects the
President’s commitment to quality, affordable
child care, which research shows can increase
parents’ employment and earnings and promote
healthy child development. The Budget invests
$82 billion in additional mandatory funding
over 10 years to ensure that all low- and moderate-income
working families with children ages
three or younger have access to quality, affordable
child care. This landmark proposal makes
significant investments in raising the quality of
child care, including investments to improve the
skills, competencies, and training of the child
care workforce, and a higher subsidy rate for
higher quality care. This increase in the subsidy
rate, paired with investments in workforce
development, would improve the quality of care
that children receive in part by allowing for more
adequate compensation of child care workers.
The Budget also provides $200 million in discretionary
funding above the 2016 enacted level.
This funding would help States implement the
policies required by the new bipartisan Child
Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2014,
designed to improve the safety and quality of
care while giving parents the information they
need to make good choices about their child
care providers. The new funding would help
States improve quality while preserving access
to care. The additional funding in the Budget
would also go toward new pilot grants to States
and local communities to help build a supply of
high-quality child care in rural areas and during
non-traditional hours. These grants focus on
what low-income working families need most—
high-quality, affordable care that is close to home
and available during the hours they work and on
short notice.
Cutting Taxes for Middle-Class Families
with Child Care Expenses. The current tax
benefits for child care are unnecessarily complex
and provide too little help for families facing
high child care costs. To ensure that all working
families have access to high-quality, affordable
child care, the Budget streamlines child care
tax benefits, extends the child care tax credit to
more middle-class families, and triples the maximum
child care credit for families with young
children, increasing it to $3,000 per child. This
would benefit 5.3 million families, helping them
cover child care costs for 6.9 million children, including
3.6 million children under five. This tax
proposal complements the other substantial investments
to improve child care quality, access,
and affordability.
Encouraging State Paid Leave Initiatives
and Creating Paid Leave for Federal
Workers. Too many American workers face the
difficult choice between caring for a new baby or
sick family member and a paycheck they desperately
need. The Family and Medical Leave Act
allows many workers to take job-protected un-