Children Still Waiting

by Helen Blank

The House Appropriations  Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education has written a bill that includes funding for many programs that support low-income women and children. While reversing what has effectively been a six-year freeze on child care spending, the $75 million increase in the bill is so modest that it still leaves no remedy for the 150,000 children who have lost child care assistance since 2001.  This is a discouraging message to the hundreds of thousands of families across the country on waiting lists for child care assistance who have limited incomes and few options for safe and reliable child care. It also asks child care providers—most of whom are low-income women themselves—to continue to make sacrifices in order to provide quality early learning experiences for our nation’s poorest children. Child care plays an essential role in achieving two critical goals: helping women work and helping children enter school ready to succeed. We would hope that when the full Committee considers the bill they do better.