For Immediate Release
WASHINGTON – Advocates with the Raising Child Care Fund continue to sound the alarm on the impact of the end of pandemic era investments in early child care funding. They released the following statement:
“It is troublesome to be forced to choose between work and caring for one’s child,” said LaDon Love of SPACEs in Action. “And it is disheartening to care for other people’s kids, knowing you are not earning enough to care for yourself or your children. Yet this is the position of countless families in communities across the country. And things are about to get worse.”
On September 30, pandemic-era investments for child care will cease. When this happens, more than three million children will lose access to child care nationwide. Many early childhood education and care programs will close their doors or decrease availability when they run out of federal funds (The Century Foundation Fund estimates 70,000 child care programs nationwide could end). This will adversely impact countless parents and caregivers who will be unable to work without the federal subsidies for child care.
We know that all parents deserve quality, affordable, and reliable child care, and all children deserve a safe place to be nurtured, educated and stimulated. We know what is possible with investment.
“In Minnesota, advocates won historic funding for childcare, including $600 million to keep and retain childcare teachers with Great Start Workforce Compensation Supports,” said Kelly Martinson with Kids Count On Us, a project of ISAIAH.
“This funding has the deepest meaning for us because we’ve seen it work,” said Karin Swenson of Meadow Park Preschool and Child Care Center and member of Kids Count on Us. “We’ve been able to encourage people to enter the early childhood field and retain them because we can pay them closer to the wages they deserve. We managed to take a pandemic-era grant program from COVID relief funds and turn it into permanent ongoing funding for hiring and retaining childcare teachers.”
“It took extensive organizing, and we made it happen,” Swenson said. “With this funding, we’re setting a foundation. Now we can start building upon that foundation to transform our childcare system into one that is affordable for every family, high quality for every Minnesota child, and a career path for childcare teachers. We won a new Department of Children, Youth, and Families that we’ve been working toward for several years. We also got the Childcare Assistance program reimbursement rates raised to the national standard after being cut 20 years ago.”
Minnesota doesn’t have to be an anomaly, but funding is required. Without an extension of pandemic funding for childcare, many families will be left out in the cold.
“Throughout the Ohio budget process, we have been advocating for adequate funding for early childhood education and care,” said Tami Lunan of the The CEO Project, an initiative of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative. “Unfortunately, the Ohio Senate passed a cruel version of the budget that removes hundreds of millions of dollars in childcare funding from the Ohio budget. If passed, it would make Ohio one of the worst states in the nation to raise a family. We desperately need federal funding, and for Ohio legislators to do the right thing for kids.”
Advocates also say the pain of cuts will not be evenly felt. “The child care system disproportionately relies on Black, brown, and immigrant women to care for children,” Lunan added. “They are underpaid, under-resourced, and overwhelmed by the sheer amount of physical and emotional inherent in their jobs. It will also harm employers who can only keep their businesses going with child care for their workers.”
“Those with means will get the care that they need and everyone else will suffer,” said Amy Hutchison, Rattle the Windows.
For more information or to speak to a parent, provider or advocate in Alabama, California, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, Minnesota, West Virginia, or another state please let us know.
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The Raising Child Care Fund is an initiative of the Early Childhood Funders Collaborative (ECFC) that pools private foundation dollars to give grants to groups that amplify the voices of families, early educators, and allies.