Understanding the President’s 2011 Budget

Last week, President Obama released details of his proposed 2011 (October 1, 2010-September 30, 2011) budget. The draft budget contains some good proposals on several key issues of importance to 9to5 and our members – to turn those proposals into reality will require organizing and advocacy, lifting our voices as high as we can. The draft proposal also doesn’t do as much in some areas as we know is needed – again, organizing, advocacy, coalition-building and raising our voices will help make the point that we need what the proposed budget offers and much, much more.

  Enhance Enforcement of Equal Pay Laws. For the first time, women make up half of all workers on our payrolls and seven out of 10 families with children are made up of either two working parents or a single working parent.  But too often women don't earn the same amount for doing the same job and the same work as a man.  Building on his commitment to enforce equal pay for equal work, the President's budget includes an $18 million increase to improve compliance, public education, and enforcement of equal pay laws. The budget also provides almost $2 million to the Department of Labor for research and dissemination of information on income and job disparities – an increase of nearly 300 percent over 2010.

Help States Provide Paid Family Leave to Workers.  Too many families must make the painful choice between the care of their families and a paycheck they desperately need.  The Family and Medical Leave Act allows workers to take job-protected time off unpaid, but millions of families can't afford to lose that paycheck.  A handful of states have enacted policies to offer paid family leave, but more states should have the chance.  The budget establishes a $50 million State Paid Leave Fund within the Department of Labor that will provide competitive grants to help states that choose to launch paid-leave programs to cover their start-up costs.  The budget also provides resources to allow the Department of Labor to explore ways to improve the collection of data related to intersection of work and family responsibilities.   Continue TANF and Add in Some Additional Funding. The President’s proposed budget includes: - a 1 year continuation of TANF; - $2.5 billion in additional funds to extend the ARRA TANF emergency fund, which will include a new 100% match for subsidized jobs programs and work-related activities; - $500 million fund for Fatherhood, Marriage and Families - 1/2 to incorporate lessons learned from fatherhood initiatives and, where appropriate, marriage promotion programs; 1/2 to fund state approaches to serve custodial parents facing the greatest barriers to self-sufficiency; and - postponement for another year of the child support cut passed when TANF was last reauthorized.   The $3 billion proposed for these two funds represents about a one sixth increase in federal TANF spending, a significant anti-poverty investment.  However, a larger anti-poverty investment is urgently needed as unemployment and family poverty climb – the child poverty rate reached 19% in 2008 and certainly climbed higher in 2009. Additionally, continuing TANF without addressing the policy itself means that low-income families have to continue to wait for the changes we know are needed – reducing poverty as a measure of success, emphasis on family-supporting jobs, access to education and training, consideration for caregiving and accountability for welfare agencies.    Help Families Struggling with Child Care Costs. The budget will nearly double the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit for middle-class families making under $85,000 a year by increasing their credit rate from 20 percent to 35 percent of child care expenses. Nearly all eligible families making under $115,000 a year would see a larger credit. The budget provides an additional $989 million for Head Start and Early Head Start to continue to serve 64,000 additional children and families funded in ARRA. The budget also provides an additional $1.6 billion for the Child Care and Devel­opment Fund in preparation for reauthorization to expand child care opportunities, and improve health, safety, and outcomes for children. This re-quest will allow states to provide child care subsidies to 1.6 million children, 235,000 more than could be served without the increase.   Unemployment and Tax Provisions. As part of the President’s job creation package, the budget would also extend unemployment insurance benefits for workers who are out of work through no fault of their own and are still struggling to find jobs. The budget would make permanent the recent improvements in the Earned Income Tax Credit for families with three or more children, increase credit amounts for moderate income families through the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, and improve and expand the Saver's Credit by making it a refundable match while also increasing eligibility levels. The budget also proposes to temporarily extend both the Making Work Pay Tax Credit and COBRA Health Insurance Premium Assistance for laid-off workers. The budget proposes eliminating the Advanced Earned Income Tax Credit option which allows low-income workers the ability to receive a portion of their expected EITC in each paycheck.   Food Security President Obama's FY 2011 budget proposal makes important new investments in federal programs that support food security. The proposed budget projects spending at nearly $57.2 billion for SNAP/Food Stamps, an increase of nearly $7.6 billion. USDA projects that SNAP/Food Stamps will serve an average monthly level of 43.3 million persons in FY 2011, up 2.7 million from this year. The budget also increases spending on Child Nutrition Programs, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and Commodity Assistance Programs. The proposed budget provides $10 billion over the next ten years for Child Nutrition Reauthorization, acknowledging that reauthorization will play an important role in meeting the President's goal of ending childhood hunger by 2015.   Protect Benefits for Employees by Ensuring Proper Classification. When employees are misclassified as independent contractors, they are deprived of benefits and protections to which they are legally entitled - such as overtime and unemployment benefits. Misclassification also has a budgetary impact, reducing receipts in Treasury and the Social Security, Medicare and Unemployment Insurance Trust Funds. As part of the 2011 budget, the Departments of Labor and Treasury are pursuing a joint proposal that eliminates incentives in law for employers to misclassify their employees; enhances the ability of both agencies to penalize employers who misclassify; and restores protections to employees who have been denied them because of their improper classification. This proposal would increase Treasury receipts by more than $7 billion over 10 years. The 2011 budget also includes an additional $25 million for the Department of Labor to hire 100 additional enforcement personnel and for competitive grants to boost states' incentives and capacity to address this problem.     Thanks to American Association of University Women, Coalition on Human Needs, Food Research and Action Center, Legal Momentum and National Women’s Law Center for providing information included here.