NCJW Urges the White House to Prioritize Women, Children, and Families in Budget

November 4, 2024

The Honorable Shalanda Young

Director

United States Office of Management and Budget

725 17th Street, NW Washington, DC 20503

Dear Director Young, Since our founding in 1893, National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) has boldly imagined a world where women, children, and families are fully valued and supported. We have consistently dedicated ourselves to the pursuit of equity and justice through a powerful combination of community organizing, education, direct service, and advocacy. We carry with us the tradition of safeguarding the individual rights of freedoms for women, children, and families. United by our Jewish values, we mobilize our network of 50 local sections and over 225,000 advocates to make this vision a reality at all levels of government and in communities across the United States.

We have long believed that budgets are moral documents. How we plan to spend our money — personally, as families, and as a country — is a reflection of our values. As the Office of Budget Management (OMB) prepares the President’s Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26) Budget Request, we urge you to ensure it helps build a nation where everyone can flourish, where every person, child, and community can access the critical care and support they need to live healthy, safe lives.

Advancing Reproductive Freedom

NCJW is committed to creating a world where all people, regardless of race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, or immigration status, have the right to build their families and live their lives with dignity. Our Jewish experience tells us that our reproductive freedoms are integrally bound to our religious liberty; we are committed to advancing the goals of reproductive justice so that every person can make their own moral and faith-informed decisions about their body, health, and family.

For nearly 50 years, there have been constant attacks on reproductive health care in the federal budget process — as evidenced by the passage of poison pill riders like the harmful Hyde and Weldon Amendments as part of the annual appropriations packages, which NCJW consistently opposes. Our nation must meet the needs of all people by funding vital health programs to bolster access to the full spectrum of safe reproductive care. We are grateful for the administration’s efforts in implementing reproductive health care policies that positively impact people across our country. The administration must build on its efforts to secure reproductive health, rights, and justice for all and we urge OMB to:

1. Request increased funding the Title X program, the only dedicated source of federal funds for family planning services, which supports hospitals, health centers, family planning clinics, and more entities in providing safety-net family planning and sexual health services;
2. And, request $150 million for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPPP), an evidence-based grant program that funds organizations working to prevent teen pregnancy.

Securing Economic Justice and the Care Economy

NCJW is driven by a communal responsibility to ensure that every person, child, and family not only survives, but thrives. Yet we face a crisis of care in this country. Parents and guardians are not afforded the paid family or sick leave they need to care for their loved ones and for themselves. Childcare costs and wage disparity lead to families being unable to pay for the care that their children need. Childcare centers cannot meet the demand and many are unable to stay open, and care workers remain underpaid and under-resourced. Low-income parents and children do not have access to the nutrition they need to live.

And, millions of children are living in poverty. This is just a snapshot of this crisis. Families and communities need the support of our federal government. We recognize the commitment to children and families that the administration has already shown, and we urge the administration to continue to support desperately needed resources to bolster care for families. We urge OMB to:

1. Request $16 billion to curb a worsening child care crisis and ensure child care centers can supply the care so many families need;
2. Request robust funding for child care and early learning programs like the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) and Head Start;
3. Request funding levels that keep pace with inflation for essential federal nutrition programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), which saves lives and improves the health of nutritionally at-risk women, infants, and children;
4. And, request $325 billion for the Social Security Administration to establish a national paid leave program for workers, to enable them to take up to 12 weeks of paid leave.

Protecting Communities from Violence and Hate

At NCJW, we believe that everyone has the right to live, work, study, and raise a family without fearing violence, and that we should be able to count on policies that nurture healthy, safe communities. Yet persistent violence and hate continue to threaten this ideal. Anti-Jewish hate crimes, and hate crimes against many other groups, reached record high levels last year according to the FBI’s hate crime statistics report. 3 From hate-fueled violence targeting communities for how they pray, where they are from, or who they love; to intimate partner violence and sexual assault affecting millions in our country every day — countless Americans don’t feel safe in their homes, in their schools, or in their places of work or worship.

We feel the pain of rising hate as both Jews who face the growing threat of antisemitism, and as Jewish advocates who believe that hate and violence in any form undermines our core values. And we feel the pain of domestic and gender-based violence and sexual assault, as an organization whose mission is to advocate for the safety and health of women, children, and families.

We know that our vision of a nation free from all forms of violence where every person is safe is possible with the continued support of the administration. We ask that OMB:

1. Request an additional $30 million in funding programs authorized by the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which includes the Jabara Heyer NO HATE Act, and increase funds for state hate crime hotlines to bolster restorative justice initiatives to support victims and communities impacted by hate;
2. Request increased funding for the Department of Justice Community Relations Service (CRS) to improve the agency’s ability to prevent and address hate by fostering community collaboration, addressing conflict, and resolving community tensions;
3. Request doubled funding for the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to $280 million, to ensure the office can fully enforce Titles VI and IX of the Civil Rights Act to protect the rights and safety of all students;
4. And, request continued and steadily increased funding for Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) grants, Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA) programs, the Rape Prevention and Education Program, DELTA Prevention Program, and the Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault set-aside in homelessness funds, along with increased funding released from the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA), to ensure lifesaving direct services and investments in prevention.

Promoting and Protecting the Vote

NCJW understands that we have a responsibility to take part in helping our nation fulfill the promise of democracy. Our vote is our voice, and our democracy is at its strongest when every voice is heard. Deliberate barriers to voting have made it increasingly difficult for people to register to vote and cast a ballot — threatening the guarantees of our democracy and specifically undermining the rights of Black voters and other communities of color, young people, and people with disabilities.

Obstacles to the ballot box are exacerbated by under-resourced election administration systems. Every election, officials face costly challenges from managing cybersecurity threats to updating voting systems, refining voter registration, and training volunteers and staff. Without adequate funding, core election functions and democratic participation suffer. Underfunding of election administration offices and systems can lead to long lines, registration delays, and other obstacles to casting a ballot. In order for every eligible voter to cast a ballot, election administration and security must be properly resourced.

To secure and guarantee the freedom to vote, and we ask OMB to:

1. Request $400 million for election security funding to ensure election infrastructure is fully resourced and that election administrators and officials have the tools they need to support every voter in casting a ballot.

Judaism’s call to pursue justice inspires all of our work. From reproductive health, rights, and justice, to economic justice, and access to justice for all, we are guided by our values and tradition to ensure a world in which each of us has what we need to be healthy, live with dignity, and share in our nation’s prosperity.

We urge you to help make this vision a reality by including the above funding items in the President’s FY26 Budget Request.

Thank you for your consideration, and do not hesitate to reach out to Darcy Hirsh (NCJW’s Director of Government Relations and Advocacy, [email protected]) if we can provide more information on these requests.

Sincerely,

National Council of Jewish Women