Women and the U.S. Budget

Action: Tax Credit Outreach Campaign

One concrete thing you can do to assist working families this tax season, is to make sure they know about tax credits that help them make ends meet. The National Women's Law Center (NWLC) is collaborating with state child care advocates to conduct a Tax Credits Outreach Campaign for the 2007 tax filing season. The goal of the Campaign is to inform millions of families about federal and state tax benefits for which they may be eligible, with a special emphasis on reaching families through child care services networks. They have a kit available in several languages on the web and you can plug into outreach efforts to reach as many people as possible.

President’s FY 2008 Budget: More of the Same

President Bush released his fiscal year 2008 national budget on February 5 and it will not surprise you that it continues the same policies that have led us to growing economic disparity in the U.S. It also adds hundreds of billions of dollars to the military budget, at a time when the vast majority of the American people want an end to the war in Iraq.

Each year the President’s budget is a proposal from the executive branch to launch Congressional debates and decisions on what will be included and what will be left out of the huge U.S. budget each year. This is a watershed year because some democrats in leadership of Congress will attempt to turn the huge ship around from its destructive course. Results will be mixed but it is still a time of possibility and hope.

Minimum Wage Hike Up in the Senate

The raise in the minimum wage is a perfect example of economic policy that is crucial for moving to more equity in the U.S. According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), raising the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour will affect 14.8 million low-wage workers. EPI reports that CEO pay was 821 times the minimum wage in 2005.