build back better

White House details how Biden plan would affect Tenn.

The White House is outlining how President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better program would affect Tennessee.

Here’s the full release:

President Biden’s Build Back Better framework will bring down costs that have held back families in Tennessee for decades by cutting taxes and making child care, home care, education, health care, and housing more affordable. These investments will provide new learning opportunities for children, help parents and especially working parents make ends meet, and position the economy for stronger growth for years to come. The framework will create good- paying jobs for residents of Tennessee, combating climate change, giving our kids cleaner air and water, and making America the leader in global innovation and 21st century manufacturing.

The Build Back Better framework will:

Deliver the largest investment in child care and early education in history.

• Provide access to affordable child care. Child care is a major strain for families in Tennessee, where the average annual cost of a child care center for a toddler is $9,998, meaning that a Tennessee family with two young children would on average spend 24% of their income on child care for one year. The lack of affordable options also makes it difficult for parents, and especially mothers, to remain in their jobs, contributing to the 21% gender gap in workforce participation between mothers and fathers in Tennessee. The Build Back Better framework will enable Tennessee to provide access to child care for 421,870 young children (ages 0-5) per year from families earning under 2.5 times the Tennessee median income (about $191,121 for a family of 4), and ensure these families pay no more than 7% of their income on high- quality child care.

• Provide universal, high-quality, free preschool for every 3- and 4-year old in America. Today, only 11% of the 165,717 3- and 4-year-olds in Tennessee have access to publicly-funded preschool, and it costs about $8,600 per year for those who can’t access a publicly-funded program. The Build Back Better framework will enable Tennessee to expand access to free, high-quality preschool to more than 148,048 additional 3- and 4-year-olds per year and increase the quality of preschool for children who are already enrolled. Parents will be able to send their children to the preschool setting of their choice—from public schools to child care providers to Head Start—leading to lifelong educational benefits, allowing more parents to go back to work, and building a stronger foundation for Tennessee’s future economic competitiveness.

Address the existential threat of climate change.

• Make the largest effort to combat climate change in American history. From 2010 to 2020, Tennessee experienced 40 extreme weather events, costing up to $20 billion in damages. The Build Back Better framework will set the United States on course to meet its climate targets—a 50-52% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 2005 levels by 2030—in a way that creates good-paying union jobs, grows domestic industries, and advances environmental justice. The framework represents the largest ever single investment in our clean energy economy—across buildings, transportation, industry, electricity, agriculture, and climate smart practices in our lands and waters. And the framework will create a new Civilian Climate Corps that will enlist a diverse generation of Tennesseans in conserving our public lands, bolstering community resilience, and addressing the changing climate, all while putting good-paying union jobs within reach. In clean energy and in other sectors, the Build Back Better framework will also strengthen domestic manufacturing and supply chains for critical goods, benefiting American businesses, workers, consumers, and communities.

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