1549 CONTINUED:
Permanent Tax Cuts that Promote Work and Reduce Poverty: The president established and recently made permanent significant improvements to tax credits for working families. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC) were expanded to encourage work and help low-income parents afford the costs of raising a family, together providing about 16 million families a year with a tax cut averaging $900.
These tax credit expansions provide about 2 million African American families a year with an average tax cut of about $1,000 each. Because of these improvements, a single parent working full-time, year-round at the federal minimum wage gets an additional CTC of more than $1,700; if the expansion were not in place, that parent would not receive
any CTC.
Expanding Access to Paid Leave: last September, the president signed an executive order requiring federal contractors to offer their employees up to seven days of paid sick leave per year. An estimated 44 million private sector workers – about 40% of the total private-sector workforce – do not have access to paid sick leave, and low- and middle-income workers are much less likely to have it than high-income workers. As a result, too many working Americans cannot afford to stay home if they are ill or to take care of a sick child if it means the loss of pay. The new executive order will give approximately 300,000 Americans working on federal contracts the new ability to earn seven days of paid sick leave. The president also called on Congress to pass legislation expanding paid sick leave and paid family and medical leave to millions more workers.
Increasing Wages for Working Families: The president has called on Congress to increase the federal minimum wage. While Congress has failed to act on this issue in the past eight years, the president has worked within his power to increase wages for working families—based on an executive order, workers on new federal contracts will earn a minimum of $10.10 an hour starting this year, indexed to inflation beginning in 2016. But the president cannot raise wages alone, which is why he continues to call for Congress to pass the Raise the Wage Act to increase the federal minimum wage to $12 by 2020.
According to researchers at the Economic Policy Institute, this Act would lead to a raise for 45% of all single, working African American mothers. Overall, passing the Raise the Wage Act would directly or indirectly increase wages for an estimated 35 million workers, helping to ensure fair pay and boost the economy. However, since the president called for an increase in the minimum wage in his 2013 State of the Union address, 17 states and the District of Columbia have answered his call. That means that today, a total 29 states and the District of Columbia have a higher minimum wage than the federal minimum wage.
Narrowing the Digital Divide: In July 2015, President Obama announced ConnectHome , which is a new initiative with 27 communities, one tribal nation, the private-sector, and federal government to expand high-speed broadband to more families across the country. ConnectHome will initially reach up to 200,000 children in low-income households living in public housing with the support they need to access the Internet at home. Through public and private partnership, ConnectHome communities will offer technical training, digital literacy programs, and devices to help narrow the digital divide.
Creating Affordable Retirement Savings: T
he Administration stresses that Social Security must remain a rock-solid, guaranteed progressive benefit that every American can rely on; although too many Americans reach their golden years without any personal savings or pension whatsoever. According to the Urban Institute, the risk of an insecure retirement is especially high for minorities: white households have six times the wealth, including retirement savings, of African Americans or Hispanics. To make it easier for families to save for retirement, the Treasury recently announced the national launch of myRA, a new starter retirement account designed for individuals who don’t have access to an employer-sponsored retirement program. According to a Federal Reserve report, 42% of workers don’t have access to a retirement plan through their jobs.
myRA is designed to help bridge this gap, and help workers get on the path to long-term savings.
Many of these initiatives will be lost if Trump wins. THIS IS WHAT BLACKS HAVE TO LOSE, DRUMPF. BTW a lot of White people too will lose the gains on this list.
President Obama's Positive Track Record For Helping African Americans
