Democratic presidential front runner Hillary Clinton has called for making quality childcare affordable to working US families as she pushed forward her agenda in a Washington DC suburb that has a significantly large Indian-American population.
"It's clear that there are so many challenges facing young families today that we have to come to grips with," Clinton said during her visit to Mugn Muffin coffee shop yesterday in Loudon County.
A suburb of Washington DC in Virginia, Loudon County this past decade has emerged as a mini-India with thousands of Indian-Americans mainly from the IT sector moving to the neighbourhoods here, with most of them working in the various companies in the IT corridor developed by the Virginia Government along the Dulled Airport.
"There are lots of concerns in the workplace that I'm hearing about increasingly - about the work day never ends, the schedules are often unpredictable," Clinton said.
"And even when you think you're gaining some control over that work day it's subject to so many variables that are out of your control and often end up throwing big monkey wrenches into what should be your family time and your efforts to try and organise and stick with that," she added.
In her casual remarks over a cup of coffee with local residents, Clinton acknowledged the concerns of the working families and talked about work-life balance, paid family leave, affordable childcare and family issues with local resid ents of Stone Ridge Village Center.
"We have to work together to try to find the best menu of options. Because there is just no 'one-size-fits-all'. People have different needs - childcare needs, sometimes even more, as Shanda and I were just talking about, even more challenging with special needs kids and how we start early and provide that sort of support," Clinton, 68, said.
During the discussion, Clinton emphasised on the importance of investing in early learning programmes and making quality child care affordable for working families as well as ensuring that families have good schools and affordable colleges as their kids grow up.
Virginia is considered as a swing state and in a closely contested election, the Indian-American community in Loudon County can play a big role in the victory of a candidate from the State.
The average age in Loudoun County is just under 35 years old and 73 per cent of households with children in the region have two working parents.
Over the next two days, Clinton would be travelling to various places in Virginia and Kentucky to push forward her agenda for child care and working families.
