Supporting and Building Working Families

Working families are the backbone of our economy and not only represent people who work at other corporations but also represent individuals who own, run and operate small businesses. Working families suffered a lot during the pandemic and the impacts of the same continue to ponder us even after through decreasing incomes, inflation, high costs of homes, healthcare, etc. Our retirement savings have dwindled due to the downfall of the stock market, there are no guarantees on the availability of full social security benefits, etc. Several of these are due to bad policy decisions and need to be fixed on priority.

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The growth of an economy is always tied to the prosperity of its working class. The United States has always been a consumer economy and the working class is crucial to this success. We need to ensure there is adequate support provided to the working class to succeed and that they are able to commit and contribute to their work effectively.

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• Better and cheaper childcare facilities: During the pandemic, people were able to work from home and take care of kids. However as individuals are now required to go back to the office, they need childcare. Current childcare is very expensive and not everyone can afford it. It’s our moral duty to provide affordable childcare so that people can effectively work and devote 100% to their jobs. Bill should be passed that requires big corporations with certain a minimum number of employees to provide free or subsidized childcare. Additional incentives or subsidies should be provided to low-income individuals and/or childcare that accepts their children.

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• Flexible work arrangements: Pandemic helped demonstrate that a large number of jobs can be performed remotely from home. This was a major boon for the parents as not only they were able to save on childcare but it also promoted family bonding. We need to encourage companies to identify more flexible work arrangements including telecommuting, compressed workweeks, hybrid work arrangements, etc.

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• Sustainable solution to minimum wages: While several efforts are being done to increase minimum wages across various industries there is no effort made to think of a permanent and long-term sustainable solution for the management of wage structure. We need to ensure wages for Effective management of wages require automatic inflation adjustment. Based on the inflation rate minimum wages should be increased annually to align with affordability. Additional consideration should also be given to location adjustment as certain cities are more expensive than others.

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• Retirement protection: Retirement is an important consideration for any individual and working families are required to save and invest to ensure they have enough at retirement to take care of basic needs including food, shelter, healthcare, etc. While social security provides some income currently it’s under pressure and we are not sure if full or any benefits would even be available after 2034. Savings have reduced due to increased cost of living and inflation and 401 K values have drastically reduced. We need a sustainable path to retirement protection. We need to ensure that 401-K contribution limits are increased. Corporations over a certain number of employees should be required to match 401-K contributions and also offer comprehensive pension plans.

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• Skill upgrade: We need to ensure working families continue to develop skills to operate in modern-day environment. With continuous changes in technology and advancements, some of the skills are becoming outdated and it’s important to provide opportunities to retrain. We need to have Adult Community Colleges that can operate in the evening to support working people to continue the enhancement of their skill set. We need more partnerships in this to continue to provide free or subsidized training.

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• Incentives: Small business incentives are key to our success. We not only need big corporations but also small businesses to thrive as they contribute in a big manner to the local economy. We need to promote entrepreneurship and provide incentives for small businesses to hire more local talent.