{"id":785,"date":"2017-02-02T12:22:51","date_gmt":"2017-02-02T12:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/families\/?p=785"},"modified":"2017-02-02T12:22:51","modified_gmt":"2017-02-02T12:22:51","slug":"how-trumps-tax-proposals-will-affect-single-working-mothers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/2017\/02\/02\/how-trumps-tax-proposals-will-affect-single-working-mothers\/","title":{"rendered":"How Trump\u2019s Tax Proposals Will Affect Single Working Mothers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Re-posted from Harvard Business Review<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
photo credit: Unsplash via pixabay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We all know by now that despite\u00a0winning nearly 3 million more votes than Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton lost three key states \u2014 Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan \u2014 by a total of about 80,000 votes. That was just enough to hand Trump the electoral college victory, and the election.\u00a0Given Trump\u2019s narrow margin of victory in these manufacturing-heavy, traditionally Democratic states, it\u2019s understandable that\u00a0the post-election conversation has focused on whether his campaign promise to help\u00a0the working class\u00a0<\/a>by generating more\u00a0manufacturing jobs is feasible. But for many voters in these states \u2014 namely, single\u00a0mothers \u2014 other issues, such as tax policy and childcare costs, may be much more instrumental.<\/p>\n

Single mothers are\u00a0falling further behind despite doing more and more to catch up.\u00a0My in-press\u00a0research<\/a>\u00a0with colleagues Jenifer Bratter and Adrianne Frech found that single mothers were, on average, more educated in 2010 than in 2000, but despite these gains, they were also more likely to be unemployed in 2010. Even when they found full-time jobs, they were at higher risk of poverty \u2014 in fact, single mothers are the group of full-time workers\u00a0most<\/em>\u00a0likely to be in poverty. And that\u2019s even though working single mothers\u00a0log longer weekly hours<\/a>\u00a0than breadwinning dads and or working parents in dual earner couples.<\/p>\n

And although\u00a0white single mothers remain less at risk of poverty than their black and Latina peers,\u00a0their\u00a0relative economic advantage declined over the decade. By 2010, nearly 34% of white single mothers lived in poverty.\u00a0This is a shift that may have made Trump\u2019s message more appealing to them \u2014 while we don\u2019t have detailed data, the exit polls\u00a0suggest<\/a>\u00a0that\u00a0Clinton<\/a>\u00a0did not fare nearly as well among single women overall as\u00a0Barack Obama<\/a>\u00a0did.<\/p>\n

As a result of the obstacles they face, many\u00a0single mothers often don\u2019t have the money to afford basic needs. In my interviews with those who have recently lost jobs in Pennsylvania, single mothers were the most likely to report being unable to cover things\u00a0like food. One, Jodi, reported, \u201cI definitely can\u2019t buy as healthy, because the healthier foods are more expensive, so I\u2019ve had to adjust. I\u2019ve had to cut back on our total food and, you know, there\u2019s less money to eat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Good federal policy would result in women like Jodi having more cash to spend on their families.\u00a0And yet President-elect Trump\u2019s tax plan seems designed to financially penalize single mothers by\u00a0eliminating the head of household<\/a>\u00a0filing status. If this proposal becomes reality, it will\u00a0mean that single mothers will have to\u00a0pay tax rates and receive deductions at the same levels as single people with no children instead of having rates that are in between singletons and married couples.<\/p>\n

Instead, what is needed is to expand and reform sensible existing tax policies that would benefit single mothers. In 2015, the Earned Income Tax Credit kept\u00a03.3 million children<\/a>\u00a0out of poverty and decreased the severity of poverty for another 7.7 million children. The EITC has also been shown to be good for our economy, as workers put most of the money back into the economy, buying necessary goods and household items. Yet only 80% of\u00a0eligible tax-payers<\/a>\u00a0claim the EITC, so one positive step the new administration could take would be to increase the number of those participating in the program.<\/p>\n

A lack of affordable childcare keeps some single mothers from taking full-time jobs. While Mr. Trump has made much of his plans, created with daughter Ivanka Trump, to expand the childcare tax credit, these changes are\u00a0likely to benefit wealthier<\/a>\u00a0and married families instead of single mothers and their children. A better plan would be to do as the Center for Equitable Growth suggests and expand\u00a0the Child Tax Credit<\/a>\u00a0so that more low-income families are eligible to receive the entire value of $2,000 for each child. Doing so would allow more\u00a0mothers to be full-time workers who could better support themselves and their children.<\/p>\n

The full $2,000 credit may not seem like a lot of money at a time when the cost of daycare for upper middle-class families can come close to college tuition<\/a> according to sociologist Joya Misra<\/a>. But Jodi and her family (and families like hers) are unlikely to use expensive formal care options \u2014 they are much more likely to rely on informal care, paying friends, kin, or in-home daycare operators. A 2009 report<\/a> by Joan Williams and Heather Boushey found that, on average, low and middle income families paid between $2,300 to $3,500 annually. For these families, expanding access to the full value of the Child Tax Credit would make a real difference.<\/p>\n

The past decade has\u00a0not been kind to single mothers of any color. Most, like Jodi, just want to find work \u2014 and earn enough money to provide food and shelter for their kids. The best tax policies to pull these mothers out of poverty would be those like the EITC and the Child Tax Credit that both promote their ability to work and result in more money in their pocketbooks. Jodi concluded her interview by noting, \u201cLike I said, I\u2019m usually working\u2026 I\u2019m not one to want help, but I hope that there is always the government to help me somehow, you know, if I need it.\u201d I hope so, too.<\/p>\n

Sarah Damaske is a CCF member and Assistant Professor of Labor and Employment Relations and Sociology at Pennsylvania State University<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Re-posted from Harvard Business Review We all know by now that despite\u00a0winning nearly 3 million more votes than Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton lost three key states \u2014 Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan \u2014 by a total of about 80,000 votes. That was just enough to hand Trump the electoral college victory, and the election.\u00a0Given Trump\u2019s narrow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1903,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8959,55,17572,371,38679,36392,76],"class_list":["post-785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-families","tag-gender","tag-mothers","tag-policy","tag-tax-code","tag-trump","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}