Congress must support the Child Care for Working Families Act!
[ [link removed] ]Take Action Now
[ [link removed] ]TAKE ACTION
Dear Friend,
Raising kids is no joke. Working is no joke. Keeping a roof over your
head, and trying your hardest to create the best life for yourself and
your family is certainly not a joke.
But what is a joke is knowing the solutions that help families thrive, but
doing nothing. So far, no real significant, comprehensive childcare
policies have passed Congress!
[ [link removed] ]SIGN NOW to tell Congress that child care struggles are no laughing
matter, it’s time to support the Child Care for Working Families Act to
expand access to affordable, high-quality early learning for children and
families!
The very not funny truth is that many of us are struggling. Child care is
unaffordable for too many families; some families report paying a third of
their take home pay to child care (!). [1] It is truly alarming that
across the country, the annual price of infant child care often exceeds
the annual cost of in‑state tuition at a [ [link removed] ]public four‑year university.
[2] In addition to this, too many parents– mostly moms– are pushed out of
the workforce due to the lack of affordable child care. [ [link removed] ]
The pandemic only made this situation much much worse, and our child care
system hasn’t come close to recovering. The labor shortage of child care
workers is very real. Early educators are some of the lowest paid workers
and often do not have access to critical benefits, like healthcare. [ [link removed] ]
Child care workers NEED to be paid family-supporting wages and so far, our
country has let them down. Our economy will not be able to fully recover
and thrive if moms, women and caretakers continue to be crushed by the
lack of investments in the care economy. Individuals and families can’t
solve the care crisis on their own. We need to treat care as a public
good, which requires public policies that allow our children to have the
best start in life.
[3]This is why it’s time for Congress to get serious about supporting
working families by co-sponsoring the Child Care for Working Families Act!
Congress just re-introduced the Child Care for Working Families Act, which
establishes a child care and early learning infrastructure that ensures
working families can find and afford the child care they need to succeed
in the workforce and children can get the early education they need to
thrive. It would jumpstart our economy by creating roughly 700,000 new
child care jobs, help 1.6 million parents—primarily mothers—go back to
work, and lift one million families out of poverty.
The Child Care for Working Families Act:
* Makes child care more affordable for working families, by creating a
federal-state partnership to provide financial assistance for working
families with children ages 0-13
* Expands access to preschool programs for 3- and 4-year olds, by
providing funding to states to establish and expand a mixed-delivery
system of high-quality preschool programs
* Improves the quality and supply of child care for all children
* Increases wages for child care workers, by ensuring that all child
care workers are paid at least a living wage and earn parity with
elementary school teachers with similar credentials and experience
* Better supports for Head Start programs, by providing the funding
necessary to offer full-day, full-year programming
[4]Congress can’t keep treating our families like a punchline, tell them
to ACT NOW by co-sponsoring and supporting the Child Care for Working
Families Act!
Our elected leaders CANNOT say they actually care about our families if
they do not support key policies that address the lack of affordable child
care.
Policymakers continue to make families and providers bear the brunt of the
cost of child care, instead of making sure the wealthy and big
corporations pay a fairer share of taxes and investing in the public good
that we know child care is.
Supporting the Child Care for Working Families Act and supporting efforts
to prioritize addressing these challenges ensures that child care is
prioritized as the true infrastructure investment needed for our nation
and its families. At MomsRising we are so grateful to have one of our
members, Tiffany from West Virginia, speak at the bill's reintroduction
today on the importance of this piece of legislation and why it is so
critical for caregivers like her around the nation.
We can unite to create a better future for all of us. Let's raise our
voices together for child care!
- Nadia, Nina, Lauren, Diana, Donna, Kristin, and the whole MomsRising.org
& MamásConPoder Team
References:
[1] [ [link removed] ]Working Families Are Spending Big Money on Child Care
[2] [ [link removed] ]New Report Finds Fewer Child Care Providers and Increased Prices,
Highlighting Need for Significant Federal Investment in Child Care
[3] [ [link removed] ]The Child Care Crisis Is Keeping Women Out of the Workforce
[4] [ [link removed] ]Still Underpaid and Unequal
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