We have before us an opportunity to have an immediate impact on the lives of our sisters and mothers, and to create a new set of possibilities for our daughters.
On Friday, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris revealed details of her economic platform, which included a focus on policies that would have an outsized benefit on women. These investments in women include keeping costs for basic needs like housing, childcare and groceries low—while also getting more money back into the pockets of families via family leave and a doubling down on the expanded Child Tax Credit, including a new version providing $6,000 for families with newborns.
I founded the organization Income Movement with the goal of building the grassroots and community-centered movement needed to get a federal basic income passed. My focus on basic income as an important tool for poverty alleviation is rooted in my experiences as a woman, both as a daughter of a single mom who, despite working hard all her life, was at times unable to keep food in the pantry or a roof over our family’s heads. As a mother and aunt myself, my sister and I raised our children together and often had to make difficult tradeoffs between paying for childcare and going to the doctor when we were sick.
It is encouraging to see Vice President Harris lean into policies focused on alleviating these difficult situations many women in our country find themselves facing. And, there are areas where we know we need to do more. Here’s a breakdown of the good, the bad and areas in need of improvement.
My focus on basic income as an important tool for poverty alleviation is rooted in my experiences as a woman, both as a daughter of a single mom who, despite working hard all her life, was at times unable to keep food in the pantry or a roof over our family’s heads.
Many of Harris’s policies are rooted in building a care economy, an important and long overdue focus for our country. The vast majority of the unpaid caregiving work in our country lays on the shoulders of women. This includes caring both for children and caring for the elderly. With stagnant wages and high out of pocket costs for care, it is often more cost effective for an adult in a family to stay at home and provide any direct care needed. Today that adult still is, the majority of the time, a woman.
When women stay home, they often give up some of the most important earning years of their careers. This, coupled with an already existing pay gap, decreases the earning power of women over their lifetimes, reducing their financial security and even impacting their retirements.
Harris’ seems to get this. Her focus on affordable childcare, family paid leave and the continued expansion of the Child Tax Credit all support the financial burden for women as they stay home and provide care. Keeping costs low for things like groceries and supporting more affordable housing can all strengthen women’s ability to make ends meet as they navigate supporting the needs of their families.
At the same time, the design of these policies is critical to their impact. Harris on Friday called for the reinstatement of the expanded Child Tax Credit from 2021, which includes provisions such as full refundability and a higher amount than the current CTC per child that ensures that the credit is progressive and has the biggest impact on the most impoverished families.
These two pivotal elements in the 2021 expanded CTC were responsible for reducing child poverty by nearly half. Providing more money to the families who need it most, not surprisingly, helped them pay for basic necessities like food, shelter and utilities.
In the absence of federal action since the expanded CTC expired at the end of 2021, many states and cities across the country are taking these important outcomes to heart by advancing their own initiatives:
- Colorado recently passed a state-level CTC similar to the amounts per child that were part of the expanded federal policy.
- In Oregon, a November ballot measure for an annual rebate that would go to every person in the state would give a family of four $6400, funded by an increase on corporate taxes for companies with profits of $25 million per year. Unsurprisingly, business lobbyists are opposing the measure—pushback Harris is likely to face as well with an agenda heavily favoring working families over special interests.
But, it is time for leadership to prioritize the common good over the further enrichment of the extremely privileged.
If we take the impact of this bold measure in Oregon, and couple it with the direct cash policies outlined by Harris like newborn and expanded Child Tax Credits and family leave, we start to see a framework of direct cash policies that finally centers women and children and the care that is needed for healthy families.
I am excited by the values that underpin Kamala Harris’s economic vision, and I urge her to be audacious as she rolls out more details in her policies by leaning into unrestricted, unconditional programs that support the lives of women and families. We have before us an opportunity to have an immediate impact on the lives of our sisters and mothers, and to create a new set of possibilities for our daughters.
Read more:
