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Eli got at this yesterday, based on an early read from HuffPost Hill. Now, Pete Stark has introduced his bill called the Women’s Option to Raise Kids (WORK) Act, which would allow low-income mothers with children up to 3 years old to classify their child-rearing responsibilities as work, just the way Ann Romney did:
Current law does not count low-income stay-at-home parents who are raising young children as meeting the necessary Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) work requirement. Current law also bans states from counting these individuals toward that state’s work participation rate, which can result in financial penalties if not met. This effectively bars low-income parents who choose to stay home to raise their young children from access to the financial support of TANF.
The WORK Act would amend TANF law to recognize the critical job of raising children age three or younger as work. Under the legislation, low-income parents could work, receive job training, search for work, or raise their children until they are school-aged without fear of losing TANF support and being pushed deeper into poverty. This is the same option that wealthy families, such as the Romneys, enjoy.
The WORK Act has the usual suspects as co-sponsors, including Progressive Caucus members John Lewis (D-GA), Gwen Moore (D-WI), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Jim McDermott (D-WA), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Rosa DeLauro (D-CA), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), and Laura Richardson (D-CA). But something that backs Republicans, and Mitt Romney, into a corner in this fashion should have far more than 12 co-sponsors. The entire point of the Ann Romney hissy fit was that raising kids equals work and ought to be respected. Nobody disagreed with that idea. All this bill would do would be to codify that principle into law, so that stay-at-home single moms can benefit from welfare in the early years of raising children.
As Stark says, “I think we should take Mr. Romney at his most recent word and change our federal laws to recognize the importance and legitimacy of raising young children. That’s why I’ve introduced the WORK Act to provide low-income parents the option of staying home to raise young children without being pushed into poverty.”
This solves a public policy problem as well. As we’ve seen recently, welfare reform’s flaws have been exposed by the Great Recession. Only 27% of families living in poverty can claim welfare benefits. And one of the major problems, outside of giving states flexibility to cull their welfare rolls, is the work requirement. This would help alleviate that problem for low-income mothers with newborn children.
I don’t know why the Senate doesn’t introduce this today. Mitt Romney said during the depressing Hilary Rosen kerfuffle that “all moms are working moms.” Well, OK, let them prove it.
More from Ryan Grim.
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This is just SOOOO wrong. Now all those good-for-nothing welfare queens will have lots of babies just to stay home, do nothing & collect the $$$ of hard working people.
Looks like we’re heading into divide by zero territory with respect to the offended plastigirls in the idiot box.
Too funny.
I thought Kate Gosselin already had a job as a media whore.
I LOVE it. This is exactly how to get them in the game. Touche Pete Stark!
Exactly.
Good public policy and a nice way to pivot to make the very words “mother” and “work” ones Romney will avoid like the plague from now on.
That is really clever.
Hoisted on their own pitard, again. Meh
New Category – Clever Kabuki?
off topic – for my fellow oldies – Dick Clark has passed away
I love it. More of this kind of work. It’s helpful in so many ways to broaden the discussion and make a point!
Why not children up to 5 when they are eligible for Kindergarten?
I’d love to see Mittens stay home with his sick daughter full time just so he can see how little work is done by full time parents.
This law would create more problems than it solves in practice but I think the intent is to stick it to the feigned outrage of the Right to the “hasn’t worked” comment and not really to help anyone or class of people like working (outside the home) mothers.
The word is “caregiver” and applies to anyone giving care for either children or elderly. That is way too much of a socialist plot for anyone in DC to enact as legislation.
That was my thinking. Calling 3 year olds ‘school age’ is bullshit. People who need welfare can’t afford preschool.
Still, it would be a step in the right direction. It’s also a fairly brilliant piece of political strategy.
He had an apt at the end (river view) of my hallway in NYC. Rode the elevator with him once.
The whole point of this is to nail Republican a$$ to the wall. It will never pass. It’s a great idea, but it’s just kabuki.
Well, yeah, but Mittens has only sons…
Heh. Was thinking Santorum. Six of one, half dozen of the other, I say.
This is a great bill and a damn good idea. I hope they stay on it and seriously try to pass it. They can nail those pro-lifers at the same time who wave the banner of life and how precious it is. They need to open up the federal pocketbook to help care for these kids in the early years of their lives . And while they are at it they can include those home school nut cases who believe that kids flourish greater in their own homes with their parents.
This bill is a non starter; just kabuki from the left; same as kabuki from the right. Distract and defer and slowly destroy the public discourse about real issues. Moms (single or not) working outside the home to feed and house their little kids are generally getting the shaft. Food stamps and charity and free school lunches are all that keep some from total dispair and the fiddling goes on in THE CAPITOL.
One way to assist working families, single mothers or fathers and just plan people to move ahead:
A REVERSE INCOME TAX PROGRAM for lower and middle class wage earners instead of taxes being withheld from paychecks the government would add additional income with the goal to provide additional income to those most likely to spend the income on goods and services thereby reducing poverty and create jobs.
A WORKER RECEIVING A WAGE OF $20,000 WOULD RECEIVE AN ADDITIONAL $30,000
30,000 15,000
40,000 10,000
50,000 5,000
This is like FDR’s plan adjusted for inflation. The trickle UP theory. I like it. How about adding an anti patriots tax equal to the amount of money you shift to offshore banks or countries to avoid declaring income from operations in the U.S.A.
well done, Pete Stark.
more of this please.
OT, LOL. “Keyboard Warning”
Gotta see this: http://www.theonion.com/articles/obama-launches-more-realistic-i-have-big-ideas-but,27953/
Love it!
Just like the so-called “Buffet tax,” this ain’t going anywhere. But I like it! Call their bluff to a certain extent. Not that conservatives’ll get it. They’ll find some way to make it all about how so-called “liberals” are victimizing conservatives and being incredibly & egregiously “mean” and “unfair” to poor poor poor benighted Ann Rmoney.
Meanwhile….
American Express said Wednesday that its cardholders charged 12 percent more in the first three months of this year than a year earlier, and past-due accounts stayed at historic lows.
The figures helped the company beat Wall Street expectations for quarterly earnings and added to evidence that the well-off are feeling more comfortable about increasing their spending than everyone else.
The average Amex household brings in $97,000 a year, compared with $71,000 for credit card customers overall, according to industry research.
What about Men’s Options to Raise Kids?
Do even our liberal legislators believe that raising kids is the sole province of women?
What about women who WANT to work after having children?
Whatever happened to the idea of universal pre-school, universal affordable day care?
On the one hand, yes, let’s recognize the unpaid labor of women in the home. On the other hand — why is our only solution to the problem to pay them to do that labor that no one else will do?
Democratic policy: Women = Mothers = Home.
How exactly is that different from patriarchal notions we’ve been fighting all along?
This is a step forward but frankly someone ought to step up and offer it as up until kindergarten. The cost of daycare is often cost prohibitive for alot of people particularly for younger children. I paid for childcare during the early 90s and it was almost $100 a week for a child under 5 in California. I can’t imagine that it got much cheaper. If you are in a low paying service sector job paying more than 1/3 your weekly take home is pretty cost prohibitive. Yes, we can provide subsidies to help these women but isn’t it the conservative always whining about subsidies!
This is not bad though because it opens an economic discussion and a discussion on the decision making process that women often need to go through. There is absolutely no reason this can’t lead to improvements into programs that help women in the workforce.
The difference is that this would allow women a choice. A woman that wanted to enter the workforce would still be allowed to. However, a woman that had a child under 3 would be exempt from having to seek work outside the household if that was her choice.
This is totally a liberal position.
What cwaltz said. Also, this is almost like making child rearing paid work which raises the value of the labor.
Welfare pays for day care so mothers “can” work. The bad thing is the day care costs more than what they give these mothers to live on which is kinda weird. So if two welfare mothers got their licenses to run day cares our of their homes, they could make more money swapping kids than collecting welfare and wouldn’t be welfare recipients any more at the same time. Think about that one.
My son worked at an afterschool care program. It didn’t even cover every day of the week. On Mondays the kids from Social Services were not attending because it wasn’t paid for. Can you imagine having to tell an employer I can’t work on Mondays because I can’t get child care?
This is what I mean by the idea that we need an honest discussion on these type of programs to ensure that we aren’t creating hurdles for those that want to enter the workforce. Additionally, we should be embracing the women who make the choice not to. We should empower women to look at their household, their families’ needs, and their own personality and needs and determine what works best for them. Most of the time its in our interest to recognize that problems AND solutions are not one size fits all.