(C) Common Dreams
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Pandemic Relief Funding for Child Care Is Ending. What Now? [1]
['Sarah Kessler', 'Claire Moses', 'More About Sarah Kessler', 'More About Claire Moses']
Date: 2023-09-30
Politicians on both sides of the aisle say they want affordable child care. Senator John Kennedy, Republican from Louisiana, compared affordable child care to Golden Retrievers. “No fair-minded person can be opposed to it,” he said during a hearing on child care policy this month.
But there is disagreement over the best way to make the math work. Child care providers used the funding to pay bills and offer more competitive wages. Democrats have proposed committing $16 billion per year for the next five years to prop up child care providers, but with no Republican co-sponsors it’s unlikely to pass. Hains argues that other measures, like subsidizing child care costs for families, are important but won’t accomplish much if child care providers can’t stay open in the first place. “We need to do more to stand up supply,” he said.
The Chamber of Commerce favors tax credits. The business lobbying group recently endorsed a bill that would expand tax incentive programs, including those for employers that provide child care to employees and for parents who pay for child care. While the bill has bipartisan support, some experts argue it is less robust than other proposals. “If you don’t have the money to pay for child care up front, it doesn’t help you at all,” said Julie Kashen, a senior fellow at the left-leaning think tank the Century Foundation who has written extensively about child care policy.
President Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan included near universal child care for children until age 5, but the provision was cut. Biden has since taken much less ambitious steps, like signing an executive order directing federal agencies to find ways to make child care cheaper and requiring companies seeking at least $150 million of funding under the CHIPS Act to guarantee child care.
In the meantime, the child care crisis will most likely get worse. In 41 states, the average annual cost of care for two children exceeds the average annual mortgage payment. Wages remain relatively low at child care providers, and even before the pandemic, about half of Americans lived in what’s called a “child care desert,” where supply does not meet demand, according to the Center for American Progress. Some states, like New York, created new funding for child care centers ahead of the cutoff in federal rescue financial assistance, and some centers have raised their prices to compensate for lost subsidies.
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/30/business/dealbook/pandemic-relief-funding-for-child-care-is-ending-what-now.html
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