Issue Position: Child Care

Issue Position

DONALD J. TRUMP'S VISION

* Rewriting the tax code to allow working parents to deduct from their income taxes child care expenses for up to four children and elderly dependents.

* Allow parents to enroll in tax-free dependent care savings accounts for their children or elderly relatives.

* Provide low-income households an Expanded Earned Income Tax Credit -- in the form a Childcare rebate -- and a matching $500 contribution for their savings accounts.

* Creating a new, dynamic market for family-based and community-based solutions.

* Incentivizing employers to provide childcare at the workplace.

* Provide 6 weeks of paid leave to new mothers before returning to work.

KEY ISSUES

* Over the past 40 years, the labor force participation of women with children under 18 has grown from 47 percent in 1975 to 70 percent today. [1975: Families and Work, 2015: Department of Labor]

* Raising a child is now the single greatest expense for most American families--even exceeding the cost of housing in much of the country. [National Affairs, Winter, 2015]

* Almost two-thirds (64 percent) of mothers with children under 6 are working outside of the home [Bureau of Labor Statistics]

* Today's workforce includes 73.5 million women representing 47 percent of the entire US labor force. [Department of Labor]

* Over 24 million of those women have children under age 18; almost 10 million of them have children under age 6. [Bureau of Labor Statistics]

* Women are the primary breadwinners in 40 percent of American households with children under the age of 18, but hold 62 percent of minimum wage jobs. [Pew Social Trends; National Affairs Winter, 2015]

CONTRAST WITH HILLARY CLINTON

Hillary Clinton has not proposed any specific solutions for childcare.

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