By Henni Espinosa 1/27/10
SAN BRUNO, CA—Jacqui Conclara is a mother to three young boys. Although she and her husband have both kept their jobs, she admits the recession has been tough on middle-class families like hers. But she has faith that President Barack Obama will come to the rescue.
“I have always given Obama the benefit of the doubt,” Conclara said. “It has been a year and I’m not really expecting miracles from him within that period.”
Obama recently unveiled plans on how to provide long-term help for middle-class families. Among the proposals is the expansion of the child and dependent care tax credit for families who earn up to $115,000 a year. For a family with two children and income of $80,000, the maximum credit would increase from $1,200 to $2,100.
But Conclara says it’s not enough. “That’s not even enough compared to the actual expenses that our family pays for childcare,” Conclara said.
Obama also plans to boost spending by $1.6 billion for more than two hundred thousand children through the Childcare and Development Fund.
“At least they would broaden or increase income limits for state-run or city-run daycares, so us, the middle-class can avail of it,” Conclara opined.
In another typical middle class home, Suzanne Correa takes care of her 96-year old mother Peggy. She says not a lot of families are equipped to take care of elderly relatives.
“A lot of people in the US hand off their parents for somebody else to care,” Correa said. “Keeping parents at home, keeping them in the family is becoming common, but it’s still rare. So there aren’t systems in place to prepare people.”
Correa says she is relieved Obama plans to help out people in her situation. The President plans to provide over $100 million to support families caring for a relative with counseling, training, transportation and temporary respite care. Correa hopes the plan will alleviate the burden for people who have a hard time balancing work and caring for their relatives.
The rest of Obama’s plan for the middle-class include capping federal student loan payments at 10% of a person’s income and making individual retirement accounts automatic in workplaces that do not offer retirement.
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