CHICAGO — The Democratic platform, released this week, included a chapter titled “Building a Stronger, Fairer Economy.” Specific policies outlined in this chapter include increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026, paid family and medical leave system, investing in transportation infrastructure and high-speed rail and increasing social security benefits.
Politicians and experts in their fields promoted and expanded upon some of the proposals in panels and speeches on care, poverty and affordable housing at the Democratic National Convention Tuesday.
Democrats aim to increase Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit
The Democratic Platform proposes “significantly increasing” the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CTC), but lists no specific number. The child tax credit is a nonrefundable tax credit available to taxpayers with dependent children under the age of 17, for 2024 the child tax credit will be worth $2,000 per qualifying dependent child.
Progressive Caucus Chair and Washington U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal said at a panel on care at the DNC the CTC “cut childhood poverty in half.”
The 2021 one-year expansion of the CTC dropped the U.S. child poverty rate from 9.7% to 5.2%. After the expansion ended, the rate shot up to 12.4% in 2022.
Efforts to preserve it faced unified opposition from Republicans as well as West Virginia Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin. Critics called the monthly payments an expensive welfare scheme that would deter parents from working.
The CTC was referenced in similar panels about poverty and housing and also by speakers during the DNC primetime on Tuesday night. Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders re-upped the tax break that nearly cut childhood poverty in half.
Family benefits and care
The U.S. is the only high-income country that does not have mandatory paid parental leave or any national family caregiving or medical leave policy. The Democratic platform proposes “at least 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave for all workers and family units.” The platform also advocates for universal pre-K programs.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the party’s vice presidential nominee, signed a paid family and medical leave program into law in 2023 to give workers in his state up to 20 weeks off, with benefits scheduled to start in January 2026.
California U.S. Rep. Jimmy Gomez also spoke at a panel focused on paid leave and child care. Gomez, who founded the Congressional Dads Caucus, spoke on the three pillars of the caucus: national paid family leave, enhanced CTC and accessible child care.
Other speakers included actress and comedian Cristela Alonzo, Michigan U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell and Massachusetts U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley all telling personal stories of navigating the health care system with family members.
“You don't know how broken the current system is until you suddenly find yourself in it,” Dingell told the room, speaking of her late husband who died of cancer in 2019.
Dingell co-authored the Medicare for All Act of 2023 alongside Jayapal and Sanders.
Democrats voice concern why millions combat poverty
Numerous speakers before the Poverty Council voiced a common grievance: as the richest country in history, why do millions of Americans still live in poverty?
“You ought to be pissed off about the poverty in this rich country,” California U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters said. “In this country, over 653,000 people sleep on the streets every night, So housing is very important for us to talk about in terms of poverty.”
Waters blamed large corporations and private equity companies for using price setting tools to jack up rents.
The U.S. Department of Justice recently recommended a civil lawsuit against RealPage Inc., a software company used by landlords across the country. The suit would accuse the company of selling software that enables landlords to illegally share confidential pricing information to collude on setting rents.
Vice President Kamala Harris called on Congress to pass the “Stop Predatory Investing Act” sponsored by Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, among other Democratic senators. The bill would prohibit investors with 50 or more single-family rental homes from deducting interest or depreciation on those properties.
In Milwaukee, the share of rented houses owned by an out-of-state landlord grew from about 5% in 2005 to 18% in 2022. Out-of-state ownership is more prevalent in predominantly Black wards, accounting for 24% of rental properties.
‘Right to Work’ laws could be repealed
The party platform proposes a federal minimum wage of $15 per hour by 2026, passing The Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, a piece of union-boosting legislation, and strengthening whistleblower and anti-retaliation protection.
The PRO Act would effectively repeal state level “Right to Work” (RTW) laws; 27 states have passed RTW laws that make it optional for employees in unionized workplaces to join a labor union or to pay union dues or other membership fees required for union representation. Wisconsin became a RTW state under former Gov. Scott Walker in 2015.
States with RTW laws have lower unionization rates, wages and benefits compared with non-RTW states. On average, workers in RTW states are paid 3.2% less than workers with similar characteristics in non-RTW states, according to the Economic Policy Institute, an independent, nonprofit think tank.
International trade policy remains vague, low-income Americans at risk of high tariffs
The party plans on negotiating standards for labor, human rights and the environment in trade deals like the pro-labor provisions added to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement passed in 2020. The platform doesn’t explicitly state if the party will pursue changing tariff policy to accomplish these goals.
The platform further stated the party would “take aggressive action against China or any other country that tries to undercut American manufacturing,” but did not go into specifics.
A potential Harris administration may choose to continue the steel and aluminum tariffs that President Joe Biden increased from 0–7.5% to 25% in 2024. Some economists estimated in 2020 steel tariffs may have led to an increase of roughly 1,000 jobs in steel production. But increased costs of inputs facing U.S. firms likely resulted in 75,000 fewer manufacturing jobs in steel or aluminum-related industries.
Former president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump floated the idea of a 10 to 20% “across-the-board” tariff on all imported goods in a visit to North Carolina. A 10% percent tariff would effectively act as a tax on U.S. consumers impacting low-income Americans, who spend a larger portion of their income on consumer goods, disproportionately more. A typical middle-class household in the U.S. would face an estimated $1,700 a year in additional costs, according to the nonpartisan Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Many policies laid out will not be possible to enact with the control of the White House alone, Democrats will need to maintain control of the Senate and flip seats in the House to accomplish their goals.
Ty Javier is a senior staff writer and photographer at The Daily Cardinal. He is an Economics major and has specialized in university and campaign finances, economic policy and transit.
