Dear Friend,

We have an EMERGENCY on our hands! Critical child care stabilization funds that saved an already broken child care industry from total collapse during the pandemic have expired, putting 3.2 million children at risk of losing access to child care,[1] increasing costs for families and worsening the ongoing crisis of early educators being pushed out of the workforce, further exacerbating the lack of access to the care families need.

Not. Good.

This is why Congress must prioritize providing at least $16 billion per year in emergency child care dollars while ensuring no cuts to child care and early learning programs–and we're inviting you to SIGN our letter today. This is the only way to address this crisis without creating a new one. This will lay the groundwork for the sustained and transformative funding needed to ensure that high-quality and affordable child care is a reality for all families.

***Join our Child Care Emergency Day of Action TODAY and take the actions below to save child care for millions of families and pay early educators the wages they deserve!***

Today we are coming together with moms, parents, caregivers, and advocates around the country to sound the alarm demanding Congress take immediate action to pass emergency funding for child care now! Please join us in taking these actions:

1. CALL your Member of Congress to tell them “Emergency funding that saved the child care industry during the pandemic has expired and millions of children are at risk of losing access to care. Congress must pass emergency child care funding now!” You can use MomsRising's call in line–all you have to do is put in your information and your phone will ring, connecting you directly to your congressional offices. (We even provide you with talking points!)
2. SIGN our letter to Congress calling on them to Save Child Care Now!
3. Share your child care story! Have your child care costs gone up? Congress needs to hear about it!
4. POST to social media (Instagram, Twitter/X & Facebook) using our social media toolkit so you can encourage all your friends and family to take action and speak out about child care as well. (You can also tag @momsrising and/or @mamasconpoder in your posts!)

Taking these powerful actions can help push Congress to save child care for millions of families. Thank you!

Already, actions from MomsRising members and our partners have had impactful results, with President Biden recently announcing a request for $16 billion in emergency supplemental funding for child care that is now being pushed to Congress.

The current state of things: The pandemic exacerbated and made clear child care struggles that families have already been facing for decades. Child care has been unaffordable and unattainable for too many families, with many paying a third of their take home pay to child care[2] and more than half of the country being classified as child care deserts—areas with an insufficient supply of licensed child care.[3] 

Adding to this is the fact that early educators are not getting anywhere near the support they need to care for our nation’s children. Real wages for full-time child care teachers dropped 6.5 percent from 2012 to 2019.[4] Then with the pandemic more than one-third of child care jobs—370,000 jobs in total—were lost from February 2020 to April 2020.[5] Employment within the child care industry, unlike the overall labor market (which has already regained all jobs lost) is still below its pre-pandemic levels.[6] And with moms returning to the workforce in higher levels than before, a lack of investment in care will only be disastrous for the economic security and vitality of families.

This is why we have to keep the drumbeat and momentum going for this $16 Billion for child care!

We are grateful for what you do every day to support the movement for quality, affordable and accessible child care!

-Nadia, Nina, Lauren, Elyssa, Donna, Kristin, Hanna, and the whole MomsRising.org/MamásConPoder Team

[1] Child Care Cliff: 3.2 Million Children Likely to Lose Spots with End of Federal Funds
[2] [3] [4][5] [6] The Child Care Sector Is Still Struggling To Hire Workers

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