If everything goes according to plan for congressional Democrats and Joe Biden, by the end of this month, Congress will pass a $3.5 trillion spending bill that the president has touted as a “once-in-a-generation investment in our nation’s future.”
But are the spending programs Biden is pushing without holding a single fact-finding hearing really what working families want? Not according to the people interviewed by the Institute for Family Studies, which talked to working people without college degrees in three cities, including white parents in southwest Ohio, black parents in Atlanta, Georgia, and Hispanic parents in San Antonio, Texas.
“I think that a lot of the people don’t work and get the benefit,” a parent from southwest Ohio told interviewers about Biden’s expanded child tax credit. “It’s a little unfair. It’s going to just allow them to abuse it, not have to work.”
A father in Texas worried about who was ultimately paying for these checks. “If everybody is getting this extra money every month, that doesn’t necessarily need it, who’s going to have to pay that back someday? Our children are going to have to pay that back and in larger taxes.” A Hispanic mother, also in Texas, added, “$300-$400 a month, that would be really beneficial. … But at the same time, it could also coddle people that don’t want to work that are playing the system.”
The working families were largely supportive of more federal assistance in making child care more affordable, but they did not want to be forced into government-run preschool like the Biden plan calls for. “I wouldn’t want to put my kids in the wrong spot,” a Texas father said. “The church person taking care of my kids, they’re going to get to know each other, love each other … you’re going to have a sense of community.”
A mother from Georgia had similar concerns, agreeing with most of the other parents that the child care benefits should come in the form of something like a voucher rather than access to a government-run facility. Given the choice, this mother said she would “definitely choose a monthly payment. And then you can decide whether or not you want to use that source for your child care.”
Working families were also acutely aware of the benefits cliffs that often punish families trying to get ahead. “I remember I was making $9 an hour applying for food stamps. … They said I was making $47 over the cap before taxes,” one mother from Georgia said. “I just don’t understand, what do they want us to do?”
“It’s like we damned if we do, damned if we don’t,” added another mother from Georgia.
These working-class families were also acutely aware of how our nation’s social safety net punishes marriage. One single woman from Georgia said, “Yes, I chose not to marry. We’re considering domestic partnership. … I get a lot of assistance for my children for myself, so if I did marry or put any other type of income in, I would not qualify for anything.” Another woman from Georgia added, “I just feel like they should do something when it comes to married couples, because it’s sad that she has to choose between marrying a man she loves or losing the benefits that she has. That shouldn’t be a choice that any working American or any American should have to make.”
Unfortunately, Biden’s $3.5 trillion spending plan does nothing to end the marriage penalties embedded in our existing social safety net programs. In fact, the plan’s expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Affordable Care Act only makes the penalties worse.
It’s bad enough that Biden is trying to spend another $3.5 trillion as our economy is already overheating with rising inflation. But his plan not only ignores what working families really want, it also undermines families by making existing marriage penalties worse.
