Updated: 1:19 p.m.

Vowing to “fight— for the middle class, President Barack Obama on Monday proposed nearly doubling the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit for middle-class families making less than $85,000 per year.

Obama announced the proposal at a meeting of the White House “Middle Class Task Force.— The initiative is part of the White House’s increased emphasis on the economy and on assisting middle-class families in advance of Obama’s State of the Union speech Wednesday.

“Unfortunately, the middle class has been under assault for a long time,— Obama said. “Too many Americans have known their own painful recessions long before any economists declared that there was a recession. We’ve just come through what was one of the most difficult decades the middle class has ever faced: a decade in which median income fell and our economy lost about as many jobs as it gained.—

Obama also wants to provide a $1.6 billion increase in child care funding to help middle-class families, provide a system of automatic workplace individual retirement account enrollments and create limits on student federal loan payments.

“Creating good, sustainable jobs is the single-most important thing we can do to rebuild the middle class,— Obama said. “And I won’t rest until we’re doing just that.—