Federal legislators have been taking bold steps to center child care reform in our nation’s political conversations as of late. Two proposals in particular, both of them introduced in Congress this year, would go a long way toward making child care cheaper, higher-quality, and available to more families.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) recently introduced the Universal Child Care and Early Learning Act, which Representative Debra Haaland (D-NM) is sponsoring in the House of Representatives; and Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) recently released a statement about how she would make high quality child care more affordable through the Child Care for Working Families Act, a bill she supports that is sponsored by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) and Representative Bobby Scott (D-VA). That both of these legislators have also announced presidential campaigns indicates that the issue of child care reform will enter election debates as well. Their proposals provide a promising contrast to proposals like Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)’s Right Start Child Care and Education Act, whose tax credit-based approach simply doesn’t go far enough.
It’s a win for all American families that proposals like these are taking the stage.
It’s a win for all American families that proposals like these are taking the stage. A closer look at the policy designs of these two bills shows us what the next big pieces of national child care reform could look like.
Current Policy Is Insufficient
Without the passage of bold child care reform, federal policy as it stands now is inadequate. Currently, the federal government provides financial assistance for child care through programs funded by the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG). Each state uses CCDBG funds to help families cover some or all of the cost of child care for the lowest income families in the state. The states determine which families qualify for subsidy support, setting income eligibility requirements that may not exceed 85 percent of the state’s median income (though most states set the threshold at lower income levels). Types of services include child care centers, family child care homes, relative care, and faith-based providers. States also determine requirements that child care providers must meet, subsidy rates for qualifying child care providers, and co-payment responsibilities for qualifying families.
Because the CCDBG program has long been underfunded, only 15 percent of eligible families—one in six—actually receive assistance. In most cases, the subsidy amount is too low to support provider costs of high-quality child care. This limited reach does not meet the needs of most families across the country, whose child care costs continue to balloon while wages stagnate.
Two Strong Proposals
Senator Warren’s and Senator Harris’s respective plans promise to address the problem head on, investing not just in families, but also in flexibility of options, quality of child care, and the early educators who deserve a raise.
Here is a breakdown of their approaches to reforming the country’s child care systems. (Table 1, below, provides a quick reference.)
Program Structure
The Child Care for Working Families Act builds on the current CCDBG program, expanding it to guarantee financial assistance to low- and middle-income families. The Universal Child Care and Early Learning Act (referred to here as the “Universal Plan”) instead introduces a new network of federally administered, locally operated centers of care, similar to a plan that Congress passed on a bipartisan basis in the 1970s but was vetoed by President Nixon. Families enrolling children at the Universal Plan’s centers pay on a sliding scale according to their income. The Universal Plan also expands CCDBG funds to support families choosing other care options.
Affordability
The main goal for both bills is to make child care costs significantly less burdensome for a wider array of families. The Child Care for Working Families Act more than doubles the number of children who could benefit from subsidy support and decreases amounts that families must pay. The bill changes co-payment levels so that families earning up to 150 percent of their state’s median income would spend no more than 7 percent of their income on child care, and families under 75 percent of the median income would be able to enroll for free. (Using Census Bureau nationwide medians for 2017, this means families earning less than $100,000 pay no more than $7,000 annually, and families earning under $46,000 pay nothing.) Similarly, the Universal Plan’s network of centers would operate on a sliding scale so that no family, regardless of what they make, would spend more than 7 percent of income on child care costs. Families earning under 200 percent of the poverty line ($51,500 for a family of four) would be able to access these centers for free.
Flexibility of Care Options
Some families need support for options outside of center-based care to account for time, location, or cultural needs. Nannies, home-based care, relative care, or other types of care can better serve families needing options at night, on the weekend, or in an emergency. The Child Care for Working Families Act supports the flexibility built into the CCDBG program and expands it, creating grants for professional development and setting standards for family, friend, and neighbor care programs. This investment increases the availability of coverage during non-traditional hours. The Universal Plan bolsters the CCDBG to help low-income families access care options beyond the public centers, including extended hours and afterschool care. However, neither of the programs offers benefits to parents who elect to care for their own children.
Valuing Child Care Workers
On average, child care workers are paid less than others in 97 percent of all occupations in the U.S. economy, even though higher salaries for early care educators correlate with better quality of education for young children. In order for children to have high-quality experiences in child care, the federal government must invest in the teachers and workers spending each day with them. The Child Care for Working Families Act guarantees that all child care workers will be paid a living wage, raising the pay of certified workers to the same level as those of similarly credentialed public school teachers. The Universal Plan provides the same wage parity and living wage guarantees. Both bills also invest funding in the training and professional development of child care workers.
Quality Standards
Families need support affording child care, but it’s not enough to have a place to send their children; they need their options to be safe and nurturing places where their children can learn and thrive. The Child Care for Working Families Act adopts Head Start or other national accreditation standards for all child care providers receiving federal subsidies and creates quality improvement grants to help centers needing support to reach higher standards. The Universal Plan similarly adopts national standards for its network of centers based on current U.S. military child care and Head Start program standards and provides grants to centers needing support to meet these high standards.
Pre-Kindergarten
Both policies apply to children under the age of thirteen, and both pay particular attention to three- and four-year-olds by investing in pre-kindergarten. The Child Care for Working Families Act provides funding outside of CCDBG to states in order to incentivize investment in public pre-kindergarten for low and moderate-income three- and four-year-olds. The Universal Plan includes Pre-K programs from school districts or other providers as part of the subsidized network of centers eligible to receive federal support. Both programs emphasize the importance of developmentally appropriate curricula that adequately prepare children for kindergarten.
Figure 1
| Comparison of 2019 Child Care Reform Bills |
|
Child Care for Working Families Act |
Universal Child Care and Early Learning Act |
| Program Structure |
Expands current child care subsidy system to lower costs to families, make more families eligible to benefit, and invest in quality of child care centers. |
Creates new system of nationally subsidized child care centers with sliding pay scale and invests in quality of child care centers. |
| Affordability |
Caps child care center costs at 7 percent of a family’s income for families earning under 150 percent of their state’s median income—about $100,000 per year. Covers all child care center costs for families making under 75 percent of median income ($45,250 nationally in 2017).* |
Caps child care center costs at 7 percent of a family’s income for all families. Covers all child care center costs for families making under 200 percent of poverty line ($51,500 for a family of four).** |
| Flexibility of Care Options |
Ensures all families who are eligible have ability to enroll child in a high-quality program. Creates grants, supports, and standards for family, friend, and neighbor care programs that cover non-traditional hours. |
Maintains the Child Care and Development Block Grant to help low-income families access other care program options, including extended hours and afterschool care. |
| Valuing Child Care Workers |
Ensures all child care workers are paid at least a living wage that is on par with elementary school teachers who hold similar credentials and experience; invests in training. |
Ensures all child care workers are paid at least a living wage that is on par with elementary school teachers who hold similar credentials and experience; invests in training. |
| Quality Standards |
Requires states’ child care quality standards to incorporate Head Start or national accredition standards and develop appropriate standards for non-traditional care contexts. Provides grants to help programs meet new standards. Extends Head Start, making it a full-day, full-year program. |
Requires that the network of subsidized child care centers adhere to high-quality standards based on military child care and Head Start standards. Provides grants to help programs meet standards. |
| Pre-Kindergarten |
Provides funding for states to create high-quality Pre-K programs for three- and four-year-olds of low- and moderate-income families while providing a higher matching rate for infant and toddler programs. |
Includes Pre-K providers and/or school districts offering Pre-K programs among network of subsidized child care centers. |
Sources: texts of the Child Care for Working Families Act and the Universal Child Care and Early Learning Act, with the following exceptions:
* The $45,250 figure comes from the author’s calculation using Census Bureau data.
** The benchmark of $51,500 for a family of four comes from a brief released by the Office of Senator Elizabeth Warren. |
Tax Credits: A Weaker Approach
Beyond these two proposals, the Right Start Child Care and Education Act, proposed by Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), presents another approach to reforming child care: increasing the tax credit refunds that families can receive for paying child care costs. (Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has advocated for a similar policy emphasis.) The bill raises the percentage of child care expenses that can be credited and allows the tax credit to be fully refundable, with a refund limit of $12,000 for two or more children or $6,000 for a single child. The program provides maximum flexibility to parents to choose the type and hours of care needed in their circumstances. However, the average annual costs of child care far exceed the amount of aid provided by these refunds. In addition, the expansion of tax credits does not support families who cannot afford the up-front costs of care, nor are tax credits an effective mechanism for improving child care worker wages or the quality of the care.
The Time Is Now for Putting Families First
The challenge of finding and paying for high-quality child care continues to grow. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that among parents of children under 18, 93.3 percent of fathers and 71.5 percent of mothers were part of the labor force in 2018, showing growth from the previous year. As most parents become part of the workforce, the demand for care options when and where parents need them grows as well. Federal investment must address these demands, as well as the necessity to improve working conditions for child care workers. Analysis has shown how this investment would further grow the workforce, create new jobs, and raise wages for workers caring for the nation’s children.
As most parents become part of the workforce, the demand for care options when and where parents need them grows as well. Federal investment must address these demands, as well as the necessity to improve working conditions for child care workers.
Senators Warren and Harris are raising the profile of the issue and putting out smart plans to address the challenges. Increased attention during the 2020 campaign season will hopefully keep child care reform in the spotlight and usher proposals like these into reality.
Tags: elizabeth warren, working families, Child Care for Working Families Act
Two New Bills Signal a Push for Bold Child Care Reform
Federal legislators have been taking bold steps to center child care reform in our nation’s political conversations as of late. Two proposals in particular, both of them introduced in Congress this year, would go a long way toward making child care cheaper, higher-quality, and available to more families.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) recently introduced the Universal Child Care and Early Learning Act, which Representative Debra Haaland (D-NM) is sponsoring in the House of Representatives; and Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) recently released a statement about how she would make high quality child care more affordable through the Child Care for Working Families Act, a bill she supports that is sponsored by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) and Representative Bobby Scott (D-VA). That both of these legislators have also announced presidential campaigns indicates that the issue of child care reform will enter election debates as well. Their proposals provide a promising contrast to proposals like Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)’s Right Start Child Care and Education Act, whose tax credit-based approach simply doesn’t go far enough.
It’s a win for all American families that proposals like these are taking the stage. A closer look at the policy designs of these two bills shows us what the next big pieces of national child care reform could look like.
Current Policy Is Insufficient
Without the passage of bold child care reform, federal policy as it stands now is inadequate. Currently, the federal government provides financial assistance for child care through programs funded by the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG). Each state uses CCDBG funds to help families cover some or all of the cost of child care for the lowest income families in the state. The states determine which families qualify for subsidy support, setting income eligibility requirements that may not exceed 85 percent of the state’s median income (though most states set the threshold at lower income levels). Types of services include child care centers, family child care homes, relative care, and faith-based providers. States also determine requirements that child care providers must meet, subsidy rates for qualifying child care providers, and co-payment responsibilities for qualifying families.
Because the CCDBG program has long been underfunded, only 15 percent of eligible families—one in six—actually receive assistance. In most cases, the subsidy amount is too low to support provider costs of high-quality child care. This limited reach does not meet the needs of most families across the country, whose child care costs continue to balloon while wages stagnate.
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Two Strong Proposals
Senator Warren’s and Senator Harris’s respective plans promise to address the problem head on, investing not just in families, but also in flexibility of options, quality of child care, and the early educators who deserve a raise.
Here is a breakdown of their approaches to reforming the country’s child care systems. (Table 1, below, provides a quick reference.)
Program Structure
The Child Care for Working Families Act builds on the current CCDBG program, expanding it to guarantee financial assistance to low- and middle-income families. The Universal Child Care and Early Learning Act (referred to here as the “Universal Plan”) instead introduces a new network of federally administered, locally operated centers of care, similar to a plan that Congress passed on a bipartisan basis in the 1970s but was vetoed by President Nixon. Families enrolling children at the Universal Plan’s centers pay on a sliding scale according to their income. The Universal Plan also expands CCDBG funds to support families choosing other care options.
Affordability
The main goal for both bills is to make child care costs significantly less burdensome for a wider array of families. The Child Care for Working Families Act more than doubles the number of children who could benefit from subsidy support and decreases amounts that families must pay. The bill changes co-payment levels so that families earning up to 150 percent of their state’s median income would spend no more than 7 percent of their income on child care, and families under 75 percent of the median income would be able to enroll for free. (Using Census Bureau nationwide medians for 2017, this means families earning less than $100,000 pay no more than $7,000 annually, and families earning under $46,000 pay nothing.) Similarly, the Universal Plan’s network of centers would operate on a sliding scale so that no family, regardless of what they make, would spend more than 7 percent of income on child care costs. Families earning under 200 percent of the poverty line ($51,500 for a family of four) would be able to access these centers for free.
Flexibility of Care Options
Some families need support for options outside of center-based care to account for time, location, or cultural needs. Nannies, home-based care, relative care, or other types of care can better serve families needing options at night, on the weekend, or in an emergency. The Child Care for Working Families Act supports the flexibility built into the CCDBG program and expands it, creating grants for professional development and setting standards for family, friend, and neighbor care programs. This investment increases the availability of coverage during non-traditional hours. The Universal Plan bolsters the CCDBG to help low-income families access care options beyond the public centers, including extended hours and afterschool care. However, neither of the programs offers benefits to parents who elect to care for their own children.
Valuing Child Care Workers
On average, child care workers are paid less than others in 97 percent of all occupations in the U.S. economy, even though higher salaries for early care educators correlate with better quality of education for young children. In order for children to have high-quality experiences in child care, the federal government must invest in the teachers and workers spending each day with them. The Child Care for Working Families Act guarantees that all child care workers will be paid a living wage, raising the pay of certified workers to the same level as those of similarly credentialed public school teachers. The Universal Plan provides the same wage parity and living wage guarantees. Both bills also invest funding in the training and professional development of child care workers.
Quality Standards
Families need support affording child care, but it’s not enough to have a place to send their children; they need their options to be safe and nurturing places where their children can learn and thrive. The Child Care for Working Families Act adopts Head Start or other national accreditation standards for all child care providers receiving federal subsidies and creates quality improvement grants to help centers needing support to reach higher standards. The Universal Plan similarly adopts national standards for its network of centers based on current U.S. military child care and Head Start program standards and provides grants to centers needing support to meet these high standards.
Pre-Kindergarten
Both policies apply to children under the age of thirteen, and both pay particular attention to three- and four-year-olds by investing in pre-kindergarten. The Child Care for Working Families Act provides funding outside of CCDBG to states in order to incentivize investment in public pre-kindergarten for low and moderate-income three- and four-year-olds. The Universal Plan includes Pre-K programs from school districts or other providers as part of the subsidized network of centers eligible to receive federal support. Both programs emphasize the importance of developmentally appropriate curricula that adequately prepare children for kindergarten.
Figure 1
* The $45,250 figure comes from the author’s calculation using Census Bureau data.
** The benchmark of $51,500 for a family of four comes from a brief released by the Office of Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Tax Credits: A Weaker Approach
Beyond these two proposals, the Right Start Child Care and Education Act, proposed by Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), presents another approach to reforming child care: increasing the tax credit refunds that families can receive for paying child care costs. (Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has advocated for a similar policy emphasis.) The bill raises the percentage of child care expenses that can be credited and allows the tax credit to be fully refundable, with a refund limit of $12,000 for two or more children or $6,000 for a single child. The program provides maximum flexibility to parents to choose the type and hours of care needed in their circumstances. However, the average annual costs of child care far exceed the amount of aid provided by these refunds. In addition, the expansion of tax credits does not support families who cannot afford the up-front costs of care, nor are tax credits an effective mechanism for improving child care worker wages or the quality of the care.
The Time Is Now for Putting Families First
The challenge of finding and paying for high-quality child care continues to grow. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that among parents of children under 18, 93.3 percent of fathers and 71.5 percent of mothers were part of the labor force in 2018, showing growth from the previous year. As most parents become part of the workforce, the demand for care options when and where parents need them grows as well. Federal investment must address these demands, as well as the necessity to improve working conditions for child care workers. Analysis has shown how this investment would further grow the workforce, create new jobs, and raise wages for workers caring for the nation’s children.
Senators Warren and Harris are raising the profile of the issue and putting out smart plans to address the challenges. Increased attention during the 2020 campaign season will hopefully keep child care reform in the spotlight and usher proposals like these into reality.
Tags: elizabeth warren, working families, Child Care for Working Families Act