Child Care

When President Obama announced his groundbreaking early learning plan, he proposed to fund the expansion of preschool and voluntary home visiting with a tobacco tax increase. Today, with eight other organizations invested in young children and/or public health, we released a report that explains the twofold benefits of this plan. Here are just four of them:

1. In the first year of the program, nearly 335,000 children from low- and moderate-income families will gain access to high-quality preschool. By the 10th year of the program, two million children will have access to these opportunities. TWO MILLION – somebody will need to order a whole lot of those teeny tiny chairs for all these teeny tiny learners!

“Crushed by the Cost of Child Care,” an article in Sunday’s New York Times, highlights a dilemma faced by millions of families. It is not a new or a surprising story. Ask any parent in any community across this country what one of your biggest challenges is and they will say finding affordable and high-quality child care.

While we have made some progress over the years, putting in place programs to help low-income families with the cost of child care, federal and state funding is actually on a downward slide. It is hard to explain why we do not provide more help to families in affording child care given that the case for investing in young children is so strong. Child care plays two critical roles that support our economy. It helps children access the high-quality early learning environments that they need to succeed and it helps parents work and support their families. Yet we have not found the will to ensure that all our children and their families, especially the most vulnerable, have the early childhood opportunities they need.

For the sake of nation’s children, families, and economy, we need to do better. This will require policymakers to step up their commitment to child care. Read more »

As a young woman looking for a career after college, I know that the playing field is still far from level for women in the workplace. We’re subject to a stubborn wage gap between men and women doing equivalent jobs; persistent occupational segregation of women into low-paying jobs; an inadequate federal minimum and tipped minimum wage, which is hardest on women since we make up two-thirds of those paid the minimum wage or less; and sexual harassment. And this week I learned another troubling statistic: managers are more likely to grant higher-status male employees’ requests for flexible work schedules than they are to grant requests from equivalent female employees. Read more »

This week marks the 165th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women’s rights convention in U.S. history. The Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton for the convention asserted that “all men and women are created equal” and called for legal and societal reforms reflecting that equal status, including “securing to woman an equal participation with men in the various trades, professions, and commerce” and – more radical still – granting women the right to vote.

This afternoon on Capitol Hill, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), and several other House Democrats – women and men – gathered with women’s rights advocates of today to recognize the immense progress that women have made since 1848 – as well as the work yet to be done to ensure that women have equal opportunity to support themselves and their families. To address the challenges facing women in the 21st century, they unveiled an important new initiative, “When Women Succeed, America Succeeds: An Economic Agenda for Women and Families.”

As Leader Pelosi observed in her remarks, women now make up close to half of the U.S. workforce, and more families rely on women’s income than ever before. At the same time, women represent nearly two-thirds of minimum wage workers, and the typical woman working full time, year round is paid just 77 cents for every dollar paid to her male counterpart. Workplace policies that fail to accommodate the needs of working parents and inadequate access to high-quality, affordable child care compound economic challenges for many women. Throughout their lives, women are more likely than men to experience poverty. Read more »

A recent National Women’s Law Center fact sheet showed that sixteen states had already increased funding for early learning programs this year and several more were considering increases. Three more states—Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Washington—have since finalized budgets that include notable new investments for early care and education.

In Massachusetts, the FY 2014 budget designated over $26 million in new funding for early care and education, including $15 million to reduce the waiting list for child care assistance for low-income children, and $11.5 million for a rate reserve that will help raise the salaries of early educators. It is the first budget since 2009 that seeks to restore funding that was cut during the economic recession. Read more »

As the single mother of two young children, Losia Nyankale’s job is what keeps her family afloat. But between earning low wages and having no paid sick days, Losia is just one child care emergency away from losing her job. This pressure made it difficult for Losia to care for her mother when she suffered a stroke, and it forced Losia to return to work immediately after the birth of her second child—despite her doctor’s orders. Losia works long hours to be able to afford her basic living expenses and child care. And she often finds herself in an all-too familiar bind: if she picks up more shifts to earn a better living, the child care costs that she can barely afford now will rise, and she’ll have even less time with her family. Losia would like to go back to school to improve her situation, but the combination of low wages, lack of paid sick days, and lack of affordable child care, keep that dream from coming true for now.

For many years Teresa worked on call as a banquet server and had an extremely difficult time arranging child care at the last minute for her children because of her unpredictable schedule. She found herself turning down jobs or quitting jobs where she wasn’t able to arrange child care, even though she needed the income badly. Like Losia, Teresa was a single mom who often didn’t earn enough money to pay for care. Read more »

Starting on Monday, July 1st, Kentucky lowered the income eligibility limit for child care assistance from 150 percent to 100 percent of the federal poverty level. As these drastic cuts go into effect, 8,700 families with 14,300 children are estimated to lose help in paying for child care. The state had already stopped accepting new families into the program earlier this year. Paying for safe, much less high-quality, child care on their limited incomes will be an extraordinary challenge for these families who have lost or been denied help. Some parents will have no choice but to resort to less expensive, potentially less stable child care arrangements. Without reliable child care, low-income parent will have greater difficulties holding onto their jobs.

Catherine Kaiser, a Louisville parent interviewed by WFPL News, fears what she calls the “domino effect” that could result from the child care cuts. “When you lose your assistance program, you lose your job; when you lose your job, you lose your income. When you lose your income, you’ve lost all hope,” she said. Read more »

A number of states have taken important steps forward this year to expand access to high-quality early learning programs, according to a new National Women's Law Center fact sheet. While some states' budgets are still being debated, at least sixteen have already increased funding for child care and early education, and at least another eight are considering proposals for additional funding. 

Progress was made in a wide spectrum of states, including both states already providing substantial support for early care and education as well as states that had not previously made significant investments in this area. Indiana and Mississippi, which had been among the ten states that did not fund prekindergarten programs, established new prekindergarten programs, with Indiana investing $2 million and Mississippi investing $3 million. Michigan increased funding for its existing prekindergarten program by $65 million (60 percent), which will be used to serve at least 10,000 more children. 

A few states acted to enable more families to receive help paying for child care. Maryland has reduced the number of children on the waiting list for child care assistance from over 17,000 in 2012 to just 76 a year later. North Dakota increased its income eligibility limit for child care assistance from 50 percent to 85 percent of state median income (the maximum allowed under federal law) and provided funding to raise reimbursement rates for child care providers and to support grants for child care facilities and other efforts to increase the supply and quality of care. 

However, the news is not all good. Two states significantly reduced families’ access to child care assistance, and two additional states are considering cuts to child care and early education programs. Read more »

"I believe our budget, and the debate around developing a budget, should be about our values and priorities — about what kind of country we want to be in the future. But in recent years, our budget debate has been too focused on averting artificial crises. This has made it extremely difficult to focus on policies that confront real, long-term problems, like maintaining our leadership in the 21st century and continuing to grow our middle class. Expanding access to quality early childhood education is exactly this kind of policy. It is a proven opportunity to help our kids — and therefore our country — succeed in the future. It would help millions of working parents right now. And we’ve got to get it done." – Senator Patty Murray 

With so much focus in Congress on cutting vital programs to reduce a deficit that is already shrinking, Senator Patty Murray’s remarks yesterday at the Center for American Progress on investing in our youngest children were exciting to hear. Her message was clear: expanding access to high-quality early childhood programs is a wise investment, not just because of the economic returns — which are substantial — but also because expanding access to high-quality programs gives children a chance to succeed. 

Senator Murray talked about her own experience as a preschool teacher and explained that she could identify, on the very first day, which children had been in a program for three-year-olds and which ones hadn’t. She discussed the broad range of skills that children develop through their early learning experiences, such as participation during circle time and the ability to hold and use a pencil. These skills are building blocks that children need before entering the K-12 system to ensure they are not behind before they even start kindergarten. Read more »

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a report Tuesday outlining the dual benefits that an increased tobacco tax would have for our country. The tax, proposed by the President to help finance early learning programs, would have the favorable side-effect of boosting public health. 

A 94-cent tax hike on tobacco products is predicted to yield $78 billion over ten years, which would be invested in expanding access to and enhancing the quality of early learning programs. Such a substantial investment in early learning will undoubtedly benefit our youngest children. Moreover, the tax would afford our nation remarkable health gains. 

The health risks incurred by tobacco products are universally acknowledged, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [PDF] citing cigarette smoking as the cause for 20% of all deaths in the United States. The report confirms that tobacco taxes are "a highly effective control strategy" in reducing consumption and subsequently extending lives. Read more »