Two proposals—one from President Clinton and one from leading Republican presidential contender George W. Bush—were unveiled last week with the announced intent of providing financial relief for hard pressed working parents. But both ideas immediately encountered criticism for much the same reason: that they would do little for single-income couples who choose full-time child rearing for one of the parents while disproportionately benefiting relatively affluent dual-income parents.

President Clinton's plan—months in the works—would allow states to pay unemployment benefits to workers who take time off to care for newborn infants. "I believe it will strengthen parents' bonds with both their children and their jobs," the president said on announcing the new rule, adding that "we ought to set a goal that all parents can take the time they need for their families without losing the income they need to support them."

The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993—which was the first piece of legislation signed into law by a newly-inaugurated Clinton—requires businesses with more than 50 employees to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to their workers for certain designated family and medical needs. The new rule would in effect enable states to use the federal unemployment insurance trust fund to change this benefit to partially paid leave.

Anything that increases children's time with parents, even for a few months, will no doubt be cheered by those concerned about strengthening families. It will also be popular with voters, according to public opinion surveys.

But what about parents who choose to forgo a second income to raise their kids full time, or parents who switch to part time work (and lose benefits) to increase their parenting time? Arguably, they are performing one of the most valuable jobs in society, one that potentially saves taxpayers millions of dollars of social pathology costs later on. The Clinton rule only helps parents who go back to work after three months, while those who decide to put job and earnings on hold indefinitely in order to be there during their child's pre-school years—often at a considerable financial and professional cost, are ignored.

A similar criticism has been leveled at the recently announced tax plan of Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush. Bush includes a reduction in the "marriage penalty" that occurs when working couples pay more taxes after they get married than they did as single adults. His plan would allow families in which both spouses work to deduct 10 percent of the lower-earning spouse's income, up to $30,000.

While the plan seems designed to win points with voters for taking on the unpopular "marriage tax" currently in the code, David Blankenhorn of the Institute for American Values points out in the December 6, 1999 New York Times that it does so in a way that is flawed. "Since the credit applies only to families in which both spouses work," Blankenhorn argues, "it does nothing for those in which one parent would like to leave the work force and care for the children." Furthermore, Blankenhorn thinks that the Bush proposal both "ignores lower-income families while delivering a special benefit to more affluent families," and creates an "incentive for the second parent to enter the labor force . . . reducing the time that some parents spend with their children."

To help parents who choose to devote more time to parenting, especially single-earner couples, Blankenhorn has three alternative proposals:

1) Universalize the current dependent care tax credit, making it available on a non-discriminatory basis to all families with young children;

2) Expand the current $500 child tax credit to at least $1000 per child; and

3) Reinstate the policy of income splitting that would recognize married couples as equal partners at tax time, permitting them fully to share their income for purposes of taxation.

With poll after poll showing that spending more time with their children is precisely what working parents desire, it is surprising to find both parties continuing to demonstrate a tin ear on the work-family balance issue. While the Clinton and Bush proposals are arguably a step in the right direction in acknowledging the difficulties dual-income couples face in balancing career and family obligations, neither plan acknowledges options (such as part-time, flex-time, working at home, or even full-time parenting) that most parents say they prefer—and in fact choose when they have the chance. It would appear to be an opportunity for a candidate who is attuned to giving parents what they say they want—more time with the kids at home—rather providing further incentives to take them away.

The Clinton and Bush policies have run into other objections as well.

While sponsors of the original Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (such as Senator Christopher Dodd, D-MA) saw it as a first step towards a system of paid family leave, that prospect has been stymied by lack of political support for what many business interests regard as an open-ended and prohibitively expensive unfunded federal mandate. The new proposal gets around this difficulty by utilizing federal unemployment insurance funds, which in many states enjoy a healthy surplus due to record low levels of unemployment. It also gets around the difficulty of Republican opposition on the Hill, since the proposed new rule—which would take effect early next year—does not require congressional action.

If the proposal to dip into the unemployment insurance fund was an attempt to steer clear of business opposition to the plan, however, it didn't work. Both employers and state officials immediately balked at the proposal, which they claimed would likely increase benefit payments in the states by 20 percent. Thomas W. Douse, unemployment insurance director for Vermont, was quoted as saying that "we have a strong trust fund right now, but the whole purpose of the trust fund is that you raise money in good times so it will be available in bad economic times." Patrick J. Cleary, vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers, was more blunt. "This is the nuttiest idea we've seen in a long time," he remarked to the New York Times. "The administration is looking for a pile of cash to fulfill a political promise, and they found it in the unemployment trust fund. But that's an insurance fund, not a slush fund. It's for unemployed people. Workers on family leave are employed, not unemployed." Richard A. Hobbie of the Interstate Conference of Employment Security Agencies, a national organization of state labor officials was quoted in the Times story as saying that "in general, our members have been opposed to the president's proposal" because of their belief that it is "inappropriate to use the unemployment insurance system for that purpose. State officials would argue that workers on family leave ought to be able to get benefits under some other government program or from employers."

The Washington Post raised another issue just beneath the surface of the debate over the Clinton paid parental leave plan: the fact that since the proposal is not means-based, the majority of the money would go to benefit dual income families with higher-than-average household incomes. In an unsigned editorial after the proposal was announced, the Post pointed out that while the leading argument used in favor of the new rule "is that in its present form the [Family and Medical Leave] law is of relatively little help to the lower-income women who may be most in need," all parents regardless of income level would be eligible for the benefit. "There are better uses for those limited resources than to create a right to such help for women of greater means," the opined. Indeed, the Post editorial notes that the whole debate is about much more than whether or not to provide assistance to parents who need to take time off for family responsibilities but cannot afford to: "Our instinct would be to means-test the benefit if it were added; provide it for the needy, but not as a matter of right to all. Many women now bear a heavy double burden in the society. They are breadwinners who also fulfill traditional responsibilities in the home. The politics and substance of that compound burden are what this fight is mainly about."

The new rule is, in large part, the result of a months-long campaign on the part of women's and labor groups dedicated to the proposition of equality in the workplace as well as the home. It was reported as early as July in the Wall Street Journal that the National Partnership for Women & Families, with backing from the AFL-CIO's Working Women's division, was behind then-pending legislation in Massachusetts, Vermont, Maryland, and Washington state to "let anyone taking unpaid family leave get unemployment insurance." Just two years ago, the Labor Department told states that they could not use the trust fund to pay for maternity and paternity leave. Now—with a plan identical to the state legislation drafted by the women's groups—the administration has reversed that instruction.

In the final analysis, both Clinton and Bush proposals would subsidize two-career parents taking a brief period off from work during their child's infancy, regardless of their income level, while doing little to benefit single-income or reduced-income families who invest more time in our country's children. Working parents continue to wait for "family-friendly" policy proposals that would allow them to exercise the options they desire.