Donald Trump’s latest child care proposals, unveiled Tuesday at an event in Pennsylvania, illustrate yet again how out of touch he is with the struggles of working families. Trump is still proposing tax breaks that would primarily benefit wealthy Americans, such as his own family, while high-quality child care would remain out of reach for low-wage workers and middle-class families.
The test that any child care plan needs to pass is whether it actually makes high-quality child care affordable for working families. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, child care is considered no longer affordable if costs exceed 10 percentof a family’s income.
Trump’s plan fails this test, and thus fails to make child care affordable, because it isn’t really designed to do so. Unlike Hillary Clinton’s child care affordability plan, which ensures that families do not need to pay more than 10 percent of their income towards child care, Trump’s tax breaks do not focus on affordability and instead deliver the most help to the wealthiest households.