Obama Administration announces initiatives to help nation’s middle class

Today, the Obama administration announced new initiatives to help the nation's middle class. The proposals would cover education, child and eldercare, retirement and long-term savings.

"They're very simple ideas, but they are the ideas that are at the heart of our middle class, the middle class that made the twentieth century the American century.”

The plan would nearly double a child tax credit to be claimed by families making under $85,000.

It would also limit student loan payments to 10 percent of income above basic living allowance. And, a proposal that Vice President Joe Biden highlighted in remarks today, would create a new system of automatic workplace savings accounts for retirement.

"It's an incentive but in the long term saves the government a lot more money that the five hundred bucks put in if we find that, in fact, we have a generation that’s ready to care for themselves and not have to look to the government for some basic needs. This will not only build up a nest egg for existing savers but it could encourage workers who currently have no retirement accounts, to start to save."

Biden is chair of the president’s Middle Class Task Force, created just days after he took office. The proposals put forth today will be included in a report from the task force which Biden said will be released next month.