For so many parents of small children, finding child care that is the right fit for your family is a difficult process.
There are a lot of factors, but making sure they’re healthy, safe, and happy is at the top of the list. Then there are the increasingly high costs of care, limited spots open, location, and reliability, as well as the emotional toll of leaving your small child for the first time - especially for the millions of Americans without parental leave who are forced to head back to work before they’re ready.
It was already hard enough finding and affording child care - I’ve heard this over and over from my friends, family, colleagues, and constituents. The child care crisis is years in the making, thanks to a poor social safety net and the GOP’s refusal to invest in our kids.
But since Republicans let the emergency child care funding expire - funding that was provided under President Biden’s American Rescue Plan - things have spiraled in the wrong direction.
This is a multifaceted issue - with multiple and overlapping causes and effects at play.
For example, the child care workforce has been one of the slowest to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, while their wages remain unacceptably low. These low wages are disproportionately harmful to women, especially women of color, and in the last few years, we’ve seen a sharp increase in the number of women leaving the workforce thanks to the toxic combination of low wages and the high costs of child care.
More bad news: Without the funding from the American Rescue Plan that so many child care centers have come to rely on, it’s estimated that more than 70,000 child care programs will likely close, leaving as many as 3.2 million families without child care.
And it’s not just parents who will feel the blow - this deepening crisis will cost the nation’s economy an additional $10.6 billion per year.
Luckily there are solutions. We can start by passing my bill, the Child Care Stabilization Act, which will make yearly investments in child care grants to states for the next five years.
My legislation will ensure providers have the stable funding they need to continue meeting the needs of their communities so that parents can stay in the workforce.
Recently, President Biden requested $16 billion for child care from Congress, a number that’s in line with the annual funding in my bill.
I’m grateful for President Biden’s support on this important issue - and I want to know if I have yours as well. If you agree that we need to make big investments to address the child care crisis, add your name in support of my legislation right now.
And if you have thoughts on this topic that you’d like to share with me and my team, please reply to this email!
I’m hopeful that we can make progress and come up with real solutions for American families and workers so that we can get back to the real business of caring for our children. Thanks for reading.
-Sara
