"High costs for parents, low pay for employees, and not enough spots for kids."
“Child care is a textbook example of a broken market”
“We don’t have the staff, so we can’t open the classrooms, so families can’t go back to work because they can’t find child care.”

—Washington Post

Dear John,

An article in the Washington Post business section confirmed what we’ve known for months: the child care industry is in crisis.

Child care workers are quitting at record rates because the pay is so low. With no staff, centers and prekindergartens are staying closed, forcing many moms of young children to stay at home.

While the country and Congress are focused on economic recovery—driven by policies that also ignore the needs of women, especially Black and Latina women—mothers and families are being left behind.

The National Women’s Law Center is fighting for a game-changing investment in child care. Developing policy solutions, advocating in the halls of Congress, providing in-depth research and analysis to inform lawmakers’ decisions—we are tackling this from every angle. That’s what you’re helping make happen when you donate. Support our work fighting for a better child care system, and better policies, for all families and children now.

Even if they could find child care and go back to working full time, the cost of child care is so high that many families are finding it might make more financial sense for a parent to stay at home.

The impact on women is remarkable: The most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) monthly jobs report shows that the economy gained 235,000 jobs in August 2021, but women accounted for just 11.9% of those gains. Put another way, women in the United States would need nearly nine straight years of job gains at this level to recover the nearly 3 million jobs they have lost during the pandemic.

Now more than ever, women and families need and deserve better options to take care of their kids and put food on the table at the same time. President Biden has proposed spending $450 billion on child care to reduce costs for families and offer higher wages to caregivers, while providing free pre-k to all 3- and 4-year-olds.

The system as it stands isn’t working for child care workers or for mothers trying to go back to work. Join a community of supporters pushing for a once-in-a-generation opportunity to lift up working families and provide affordable child care for all kids, with fair wages for workers. Donate today—to support this essential work and our fight for gender justice!

I truly believe we can make this happen, John. Thanks for being a part of it.

Sincerely,

Jasmine Tucker
she/her/hers
Director of Research
National Women’s Law Center