6 important takeaways for families from the State of the Union address

Middle-class families were front-and-center during last night's State of the Union Address.

As is the annual custom, President Barack Obama spoke to the nation, and Congress, in his seventh State of the Union Address. His remarks, which touched on everything from the need for more bipartisan cooperation to the current state of the American economy, outlined what will likely be the areas of focus for the last two years of his administration.

In the president’s address, which finds its precedent in Article 2 Section 3 of the Constitution, the president put forth several plans that will directly impact the average American family. Here are the 6 policies emphasized by the president that most directly affect American family life.

1. Free community college

President Obama first announced his plan to remove the cost of the first two years of community college on Jan. 9, according to The Associated Press.

“Community college should be free for those willing to work for it because, in America, a quality education should not be a privilege that is reserved for a few,” the president said at the time.

Obama went on to further emphasize his cost reduction plan during Tuesday’s State of the Union Address.

“Forty percent of our college students choose community college,” Obama said Tuesday night. “Whoever you are, this plan is your chance to graduate ready for the new economy, without a load of debt.”

According to a report by The College Board, the average annual cost of a student enrolled in community college is roughly $15,00.00, including housing, and according to the Pew Research Center, hispanic families will most greatly feel the impact of Obama’s community college proposal.

2. Immigration reform

During his remarks on Tuesday night, President Obama grouped his focus on immigration reform with other issues he feels directly impact American families, namely economic stability and affordable health care.

“We can’t put the security of families at risk by taking away their health insurance, or unraveling the new rules on Wall Street, or refighting past battles on immigration when we’ve got a system to fix,” he said.

Obama used the term “refighting” in reference to immigration because of his recent executive action on immigration, providing relief for to up to 5 million undocumented immigrants. While Republicans in the house continue to threaten action in hopes of blocking the president’s immigration move, most analysts anticipate Obama’s reforms will remain.

“Today our immigration system is broken, and everybody knows it,” the president said on Nov. 20 of last year while announcing his intentions to sign the sweeping immigration executive action.

“When you talk to families who are fearful that a mother might be deported and not see her children,” the president said in an official White House video released to promote the administration’s immigration agenda, “or you hear stories about young people who are brought here when they were two — three years old, they are as American as any of us in attitude and love of country but they don’t have the right papers, and there’s a consequence.”

The administration’s focus on family issues in the immigration debate is quite consistent. An infographic released by the White House in conjunction with the president’s executive action states that simplifying the immigration system will “boost our economy and keep families together.”

4. Same-sex marriage

State laws restricting homosexual couples from marrying are being overturned by federal judges all across the nation, with Florida being the most recent state to recognize same sex marriage. As a result, advocates for traditional marriage continue to push for reconsideration from federal judges, culminating in the Supreme Court’s announcement on Jan. 16 that they will rule in June whether or not states have the right to restrict such marriages.

In his State of the Union address, president Obama took a firm stance on the issue of same-sex marriage, stating in a positive tone that he’s “seen something like gay marriage go from a wedge issue used to drive us apart to a story of freedom across our country, a civil right now legal in states that seven in 10 Americans call home.”

In a statement following the Supreme Court’s ruling in June 2013 that the Defense of Marriage Act — which barred the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages — was unconstitutional, president Obama called the DOMA “discrimination enshrined in law.”

“It treated loving, committed gay and lesbian couples as a separate and lesser class of people,” he continued in a statement issued after the ruling. “The Supreme Court has righted that wrong, and our country is better off for it. We are a people who declared that we are all created equal – and the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”

3. Middle-class economics

In his remarks Tuesday night, the President asked, “Will we accept an economy where only a few of us do spectacularly well? Or will we commit ourselves to an economy that generates rising incomes and chances for everyone who makes the effort?”

For years the Obama administration has been working to raise taxes for the wealthiest Americans, and Obama now sees such action as key to cutting taxes for the middle-class. “As Americans we don’t mind paying our fair share of taxes, as long as everybody else does, too,” Obama declared Tuesday night.

Further, the President argued that closing tax loopholes and offering incentives for American companies to keep their business domestic would strengthen the middle-class economy.

The president made clear that his overarching aim of his budget was to, “[lower] the taxes of working families and putting thousands of dollars back into their pockets each year.”

5. Maternity leave

In an effort to promote the Healthy Families Act, a bill that was first introduced to congress in March 2013, President Obama once again pushed for paid-maternity leave. And on Tuesday he emphasized that, “(the United States is) the only advanced country on Earth that doesn’t guarantee paid sick leave or paid maternity leave for our workers.”

Women are most affected by the current lack of policy, the president argued, and he believes this isn’t their only woe in the workplace. “Of course nothing helps families make ends meet like higher wages. That’s why this congress still needs to pass a law that makes sure a woman is paid the same as a man for doing the same work,” the president declared.

Further, the president insisted it was time we “stop treating child care as a side issue, or a women’s issue, and treat it like the national economic priority that it is for all of us.” This signals, at least according to Vox, a proposal to expand the Child Care and Dependent Tax Credit.

6. Paid sick leave

The president again addressed what he called “middle-class economics” by outlining a plan that aims to offer all workers the opportunity to “earn seven days of paid sick leave.”

He argued that parents are forced to make, “the gut wrenching choice between a paycheck and a sick kid at home.” President Obama noted in his address that this provision, which passed in each state where it was on the ballot this past November, would allow parents to care for their sick children without fear of lost wages.

Forty-three million workers, the president noted Tuesday, currently operate without a provision of paid sick leave. Obama’s call to action praised the states that have already adopted this legislation, which is another provision found in the Healthy Families Act, and called for congress to pass the bill that would apply this precedent federally.

Travis Miller is an assistant Web Producer for the Moneywise and Opinion sections of DeseretNews.com
Email: tmiller@deseretdigital.com; Twitter: @travis_miller1