Responsible Fatherhood

1
Responsible Fatherhood

• Financial and Emotional Support

2
Financial Support

• Low employment problems for non-college educated
  males, especially acute in young black men.
• Two thirds of fathers that do not live with their
  children fail to pay up.

3
Emotional Support

• Establish emotional connection
• Provide support during development
• Congress must purge historical bias against
  fathers and two parent families, especially
  married couples, in the welfare system.

4
Proposed Policies

• Put men to work -create a powerful new incentive
  for states to integrate men in their
  welfare-to-work systems
• -create a competitive grant program to
  support and replicate state initiatives
• Focus on prisoners-
• -expand prison labor
• -private firms finding jobs for ex-cons
• -federal support for competitive grants to
  public and private efforts to mentor the children
  of prisoners

5
Reforming Divorce Law

• Placing children first in divorce legal procedures

6
Divorce and Children

• one million American children a year
• linked to poor academic performance, depression,
  anti-social behavior
• negative consequences cannot be fully explained
  by either parental conflict pre-divorce or
  declining income post-divorce
• If divorce is so common, laws should be reformed
  to place children first.

7
Proposed Policies

• Divorce no fault by mutual consent only
• Institute a breaking mechanism even in cases in
  which both parties consent
• Create a legal presumption in favor of joint
  custody whenever feasible
• Put childrens interests first

8
Marriage Tax Systems

• Making the Tax System More Family Friendly

9
Marriage Tax Problems

• Marriage penalties severely taxes unmarried low
  income parents.
• Credits do no fully benefit proper recipients-
  example CDCC is badly targeted.
• EITC and EGTRRA extremely difficult to
  understand.

10
Proposed Policies

• Reduce existing marriage penalties and simplify
  the tax code -provide more income to low-income
  families
• -provide public assistance to help
  low-income families understand tax codes
• Reform the Child and Dependent Care Credit
• -eliminate the credit
• -fold the resulting savings into the Child
  Tax Credit

11
Balancing Work and Family

• Creating better policies to accommodate the new
  working parents norm

12
The Modern Working Parents Family

• Two-worker family is the norm with a more equal
  division of labor between husbands and wives.
• Social and tax policies are still based on the
  male-breadwinner/female-homemaker policies of the
  1950s.
• Survey shows parents demand more and better
  childcare, more generous family policies,
  flexible work arrangement.

13
Proposed Policies More and Better Childcare

• Available, quality preschool for all children
• -create preschool programs in public
  schools, recreation centers, child care centers,
  and Head Start centers
• -contract with public or private entities to
  supply the learning programs
• Stimulate after-school program growth
• - expand the 21st Century Community Learning
  Centers program
• -more programs are most effective in
  promoting student achievement gains and reducing
  risky behaviors

14
Proposed Policies Federal Economic Support

• Increase federal child care support
• -boost spending towards current program
• -increased access for mothers, more
  locations and longer hours at affordable prices
• -equality of all low-income families
• Create a paid leave system
• -state support of a paid leave system,
  eligible to either parent employed for at least
  1.5 years
• -federal support of 75 of the cost of the
  new benefits

15
Proposed Policies Regulating Corporate Family
Policies

• Expand Family Leave
• -expand the Family and Medical act to small
  businesses
• Allow Workers to Take Comp Time
• -flexible work hours, giving the choice to
  do overtime for extra pay and or take time off
  from work
• -bar employers from forcing taking time-off
  or taking away unused comp time
• Promote Telework
• -provide tax credit to cover expenses
• -exempt home offices from workplace
  regulations

16
Conclusion
What do you think of the policies proposed?

• Will they have positive or negative affects on
  the family?
• Are they feasible policies?
• How will the public react?