Don’t Be Fooled by Trump’s Motherhood and Child Care Ads
/By Debra L. Ness, President, National Partnership for Women & Families Action Fund
Two new ads from the Trump campaign – “Motherhood,” released last week, and “Listening,” released yesterday – are now being seen in households across the country. The ads touch on some of the issues that matter most to America’s women and families, including paid leave, child care and dependent care savings accounts, but the solutions they propose miss the mark badly in terms of what the nation really needs.
Labor laws in this country are, indeed, outdated, but Donald Trump’s proposals would do much more harm than good. In particular, his plan to offer six weeks of paid maternity leave by eliminating so-called fraud and abuse in the unemployment insurance system is woefully short-sighted and grossly inadequate. By only covering new moms whose employers do not offer maternity leave, it would exclude millions of workers who need leave, perpetuate harmful stereotypes about caregiving, and create new obstacles for women in the workplace.
What our nation really needs is a national paid family and medical leave program that applies to every worker, no matter where they live, what job they hold or who their boss is. An effective national program must provide all workers with at least 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave, with at least two-thirds wage replacement, to care for a new child, a seriously ill loved one, their own serious health condition or for certain military caregiving purposes.
Similarly, child care is out of reach for many working families, but Donald Trump’s plan wouldn’t help. Dependent care savings accounts would only help families that can afford to save thousands of dollars. His tax deduction is regressive and low-income families would save very little. And his tax credit isn’t enough to make child care affordable and wouldn’t be available to households in which only one parent is employed. What our nation really needs is a plan that makes high-quality child care accessible and affordable for all families.
There is one policy change, put in place by President Obama, that is about to update our nation’s labor laws. Yet it’s not mentioned in Donald Trump’s new ads because he opposes the badly needed reform. Donald Trump wants to delay and diminish an update to our nation’s overtime protections that will provide an estimated 12.5 million workers – 6.4 million women – income they earn. Because existing regulations have been allowed to erode for three decades, only hourly and salaried workers paid poverty wages currently qualify for overtime pay. Blocking regulations that will change this, as Trump has vowed to do, would be a terrible step in the wrong direction.
What our nation really needs is to restore some basic fairness in our workplaces by ensuring the overtime updates take effect on December 1 as planned. These updates will create an economic lifeline for millions and help end blatant worker exploitation. And, just like a federal minimum wage increase and efforts to combat pay discrimination, which are also critically important, they will go a long way toward advancing fair pay for women.
Like their male counterparts, women voters want comprehensive solutions that will improve their lives, and the lives of generations to come. And the only presidential candidate who is proposing the sound, thoughtful, comprehensive solutions women and families need is Hillary Clinton. At best, the Trump campaign’s ads and proposals touch on issues women care about in a way that is misleading. At worst, they will do real damage. Either way, voters should not be fooled.