We can’t reward work and family unless men and women get equal pay for equal work.  The female unemployment rate is the lowest in 46 years.  Yet women still earn only about 75 cents for every dollar men earn.  We must do better by providing the resources to enforce present equal pay laws, training more women for high-paying, high-tech jobs, and passing the Paycheck Fairness Act.

Two-thirds of new jobs are in the suburbs, far away from many low-income families.  In the past two years, I have proposed and Congress has approved 110,000 new housing vouchers—­rent subsidies to help working families live closer to the workplace.  This year, let us more than double that number.  If we want people to go to work, they have to be able to get to work.

Many working parents spend up to a quarter of their income on child care.  Last year, we helped parents provide child care for about two million children.  My child care initiative, along with funds already secured in welfare reform, would make child care better, safer, and more affordable for another 400,000 children.

For hard-pressed middle-income families, we should also expand the child care tax credit.  And we should take the next big step.  We should make that tax credit refundable for low-income families.  For those making under $30,000 a year, that could mean up to $2,400 for child-care costs.  We all say we’re pro-work and pro-family.  Passing this proposal would prove it.

Tens of millions of Americans live from paycheck to paycheck.  As hard as they work, they still don’t have the opportunity to save.  Too few can make use of IRAs and 401-K retirement plans.  We should do more to help working families save and accumulate wealth.  That’s the idea behind so-called Individual Development Accounts.  Let’s take that idea to a new level, with Retirement Savings Accounts that enable every low- and moderate-income family in America to save for retirement, a first home, a medical emergency, or a college education.  I propose to match their contributions, however small, dollar for dollar, every year they save.  And to give a major new tax credit for any small business that provides a meaningful pension to its workers.

Nearly one in three American children grows up in a home without a father.  These children are five times more likely to live in poverty than children with both parents at home.  Clearly, demanding and supporting responsible fatherhood is critical to lifting all children out of poverty.

We have doubled child support collections since 1992, and I am proposing tough new measures to hold still more fathers responsible.  But we should recognize that a lot of fathers want to do right by their children—­and need help to do it.  Carlos Rosas of St. Paul, Minnesota, got that help.  Now he has a good job and he supports his son Ricardo.  My budget will help 40,000 fathers make the choices Carlos did.  And I thank him for being here.