Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/24680
> THE NEW NORMAL Changes in family structure and work, families with children under age 18, 1975 and 2008 20.7% 44.7% 43.5% MARRIED, traditional (only husband employed) MARRIED, dual earner 31.1% 2.1% 3.8% 5.1% 3.0% 8.8% 7.3% 1975 MARRIED, both parents unemployed MARRIED, non-traditional (only wife employed) SINGLE PARENT, employed 22.1% SINGLE PARENT, unemployed 7.8% 2008 SOURCE: The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything True reform of our safety net would mean that Amer- ican families are assured that their income will be replaced not only as a result of retirement, disability or unemploy- ment but also when they have to care for a new child or an ill relative. Paid family and medical leave—call it “family insurance”—could be implemented on the state level (like unemployment insurance and, in some states, disability insurance) or at the federal level (like Social Security). N4o. STATS: AVERAGE COST OF CHILD CARE $50K 32 | FALL 2009 Median U.S. household income: $50,303 Average annual cost of high-quality child care: Infant $15,895 4-year-old $11,680 School-age $10,720 SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau; National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies PROVIDE HIGH-QUALITY CHILD CARE. The U.S. is practically alone among developed countries in leaving day care almost entirely to the private market. And this is no small issue: In two-thirds of American families, the single parent or both parents work. Child care in the U.S. is a mishmash of arrangements, from partners working different shifts to grandparents car- ing for children to unlicensed neighborhood care to organized child-care facilities (only a quarter of U.S. chil- dren with a mother in the workforce are placed in the lat- ter). About 14 million children in the country are “latchkey kids,” who return home after school with no parent to supervise them. The Obama administration has increased funding for early education dramatically, especially for the most needy families, in the Recovery Act. But there is still more to do. We need to expand the measly dependent- care tax credit and make it applicable as a refund to those who don’t have to pay taxes, for one thing. Pens, paper and gasoline are considered business expenses—but not a babysitter who enables a second parent to go to work. After-school and summer-school programs should be universally available, and child-care facilities must be held to higher standards. It’s enough to make women throw their own Boston Tea Party: Our current tax system, while seemingly neutral, overtaxes women. N5o. Payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare are flat taxes: They kick in on the first dollar earned, and they stop at $106,800. This means that low-income workers— a bracket in which women predominate—pay a higher percentage of their income toward Social Security taxes than do high-income workers. A married person (or a divorced person who was mar- ried at least 10 years) can receive a spousal benefit—half of what the earner would have received—even though that married person was never employed a day. And that spousal benefit may be larger than the benefit received as STOP TAXING WOMEN’S INCOME UNFAIRLY/ DISPROPORTIONATELY. www.feminist.org