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coronavirus relief
New Report on Pandemic-Era Funding Shows 'Childcare Crisis Is a Policy Choice'
"Childcare is a public good and needs robust federal investment to maintain progress that was made with relief funds and to avoid further crisis," reads an analysis.
Sep 26, 2024
With the last of the federal childcare funding included in coronavirus pandemic relief set to expire at the end of September, two civil society groups on Thursday released an analysis of the "significant benefits" the funding included for families and early childhood educators across the U.S.—showing that the federal government could, and "must," gain control of the nationwide childcare crisis with robust investments.
Published by the National Women's Law Center (NWLC) and the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), Cliff Notes: Key Takeaways From Pandemic-Era Child Care Relief and the Child Care Funding Cliff analyzes the childcare benefits included in the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021, which provided $24 billion in childcare stabilization grants and $15 billion in supplemental money for the existing Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG)—the latter of which is set to expire September 30.
The funding helped stabilize 220,000 childcare programs across the country, according to the report, assisting centers to pay staff members, rent, and continue providing services to families. A 2022 survey of childcare programs by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) showed that the funding also allowed 75% of respondents to pay employees sufficiently, with 53% providing bonuses and 38% increasing baseline wages in a notoriously low-paying industry.
When the childcare stabilization grants expired last September, Thursday's study found, it was felt across the country by families and childcare workers alike. Twenty-nine percent of families faced higher tuition due to rising operating costs for providers, and as employees told NAEYC in another survey in February 2024, staff shortages led to increased burnout among early childhood educators.
"Childcare is a public good and needs robust federal investment to maintain progress that was made with relief funds and to
avoid further crisis," reads a fact sheet accompanying the report by NWLC and CLASP.
The $15 billion in supplemental CCDBG funding set to expire at the end of the month allowed states to make "substantial improvements to their childcare assistance policies," which in turn eliminated waiting lists for childcare assistance, expanded eligibility for assistance, lowered or waived copayments for families, and increased payment rates to providers.
Now, said the groups, "the United States can and must make long-term investments in women, children, and families."
Melissa Boteach, vice president of childcare and income security at NWLC, said Congress must pass "$16 billion in emergency relief, alongside long-term investments, so that families and early educators can have the robust, fully funded childcare system that they need and deserve."
The report emphasizes that the U.S. government "has the resources to fulfill this vision," using as an example tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that were included in former Republican President Donald Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
"The soon-to-expire $15 billion ARPA supplemental CCDBG discretionary funding was a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of revenue lost from decades of tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations," reads the report. "We can't afford to put off investing in early learning and childcare any longer, and we have an imminent opportunity to raise public dollars to support investments in childcare. In 2025, some provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act are scheduled to expire. If we allow the tax cuts for the wealthiest to expire and make additional progressive changes to the tax code, we could raise trillions of dollars in tax revenue that could support investments in women, children, and families."
Increasing the law's federal corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% would raise $1.35 trillion over 10 years, "which could fully fund President [Joe] Biden's childcare proposal twice over and still have money left over," reads the report.
The report makes clear, said Boteach, "that public investment in childcare works, and that our current childcare crisis is a policy choice."
The report was released as U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) prepared to introduce a bill that would cap childcare costs for families earning under $250,000 per year at $10 per day, modeled on a Canadian initiative. The proposal includes a grant program that would allocate $780 billion over 10 years to fund childcare providers.
"As a father of young kids, I understand how difficult this is for families," Khanna told Time magazine. "Particularly for those who are away from grandparents or uncles or aunts and are working or middle class. But I also think that it is fundamental to giving people a fair shot at the American dream—that the biggest investment we can make is in young children to have a big economic return."
Unless the federal government makes a "significant and sustained" investment in childcare, said Stephanie Schmidt, director of childcare and early education at CLASP, "the challenges and inequities plaguing the childcare sector will worsen and states will backslide on the progress they achieved using the relief funds to make care more affordable and easier to find."
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Thousands Tell EU to 'Stop Austerity' at Mass March in Brussels
"Austerity is always aimed at the same people: working people," said one French labor leader.
Dec 12, 2023
Labor leaders in the European Union on Tuesday estimated that 15,000 people from across the bloc had traveled to central Brussels to march against austerity measures expected to go into effect after the New Year, with workers demanding fair wages and sufficient funding for public services.
Organized by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and other labor organizations representing workers in the agricultural, tourism, and food industries, among others, the march through the E.U.'s capital was planned in response to the Stability and Growth Pact—a set of economic rules that were paused during the coronavirus pandemic.
The rules that are set to go into effect again in 2024, following months of negotiations by finance ministers, require that member states' public debt doesn't exceed 60% of their gross domestic product and that their annual deficit stay below 3%.
The ETUC said 14 of the E.U.'s 27 member states would be required to cut a combined 45 billion euros ($49 billion) from their budgets next year under the plan, followed by more cuts in the coming years.
In a letter to the European Council on Monday, the union, which represents 45 million workers, noted that wages are already falling in the bloc, despite the fact that profit margins of corporations are increasing.
"Further austerity would have a devastating effect on the economy and on workers, deepening the social justice emergency," wrote Esther Lynch, general secretary of the ETUC, noting that the early days of the pandemic in 2020 saw European governments invest in public health measures and worker protections. "We must maintain a solidaristic and forward-looking approach."
The union called on the council to approve a further one-year extension of the Stability and Growth Pact's "escape clause," which was invoked in 2020.
"The ETUC is calling for a rethink," wrote Lynch. "A smarter reform is needed. The austerity measures imposed following the financial crisis had a profoundly damaging effect on Europe, with the scars still visible in our economy, our society, and our politics."
The New Economic Foundation released an analysis last year showing that without restrictions on public spending that were imposed in the E.U. after the 2008 financial meltdown, the average citizen of the bloc would be more than $3,000 better off, and governments would have invested $575 billion more in infrastructure and $1,000 more per person on education, healthcare, and other social services.
A return to such austerity would "kill jobs, lower wages, mean even less funding for already over-stretched public services, and all but guarantee another devastating recession," Lynch told the Associated Press.
One education worker who traveled all the way from Portugal to march told the AP that "fair taxation" is needed "so that there is enough money to go to the public services and all European citizens and all European workers can live with dignity."
"People deserve to live in dignity, to have decent salaries, to have good working conditions and they are not getting it from most governments in Europe and this austerity," Manuela Mendonca told the outlet.
The ETUC said investments in social spending and meeting climate targets must be excluded from spending limits, and called for the Recovery and Resilience Facility, which was passed to aid climate action and a digital transition across Europe, to be kept in place.
"Austerity is always aimed at the same people," said Sophie Binet, secretary-general of the General Confederation of Labor in France, at Tuesday's march. "Working people."
Marchers carried signs through Brussels that read, "For jobs and public services" and, "Stop austerity."
"Austerity has been tried and it failed," Lynch told the AP. "It is time to learn the lessons of the past and ensure the E.U.'s economic rules put the wellbeing of people and the planet before totally arbitrary limits."
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Biden Deserves Praise for Going Big and Bold on the Economy. Let's Push Him to Go Bigger and Bolder
Our job is to make sure he understands where he falls short—so we can make maximum use of what may well be a once-in-a generation chance to build a truly equitable society.
May 06, 2021
Joe Biden came into office facing historic, overlapping crises: a pandemic, a recession, racial unrest, and flagging faith in democracy and government.
He had two choices: Govern from a mythical middle and risking failing to structurally address any one of these overlapping crises, or step boldly into the moment and reassert a role for effective government.
He deserves credit for surrounding himself with social movement advocates, who have greatly improved his approaches to a range of issues.
On the pandemic and the economy, Biden largely chose to boldly meet the moment.
The nearly $2 trillion American Rescue Plan was packed with necessary help for working people and small businesses, including a big new child tax credit, an extension of unemployment relief, and direct payments to most families.
The law also made bold strides to end the pandemic--including an effective plan for vaccine distribution and COVID-19 health care, with a focus on the most impacted populations. As a result, the administration was able to more than double its goal of administering 100 million vaccinations in the first 100 days, ultimately reaching over 200 million.
Biden's proposed American Jobs and Families Plans take the next step: building a more prosperous, equitable, and sustainable economy after the pandemic.
His American Jobs Plan is a robust 21st century infrastructure plan. It would create millions of well-paying jobs repairing roads and bridges, developing green technology, and expanding broadband, while also protecting the millions of care workers who proved so essential during the pandemic.
Biden's American Families Plan, unveiled in his recent address to Congress, represents yet another desperately needed investment in the economic well-being of ordinary families. It includes plans for universal pre-k education, paid family and medical leave, and robust funding for child care and free community college.
Importantly, Biden is choosing to pay for these plans entirely with taxes on the wealthiest people and corporations, who have unfairly taken advantage of loopholes, regressive tax policies, and outright cheating for decades.
These are all important steps--many of which Biden has taken under pressure from social movements and anti-poverty advocates. But of course, much remains to push him on.
For instance, Biden's child care proposal provides care for kids up to age 5. Why not raise it to 13? His investments in expanding affordable housing are long overdue, but he'll need to increase funding for vouchers so low-income families can actually live there.
Biden also needs to live up to his promise to raise the federal minimum wage to at least $15 an hour. And while Biden has said he wants to expand health care and lower drug prices, anything less than Medicare for All--which Biden still opposes--will fall short.
Meanwhile Biden has yet to come through on other critical domestic issues--like immigration, criminal justice reform, canceling student loan debt, and cutting the bloated Pentagon budget.
Still, 100-plus days in, Biden deserves praise for going big and bold on long overdue structural overhauls to our economy, as well as for making moves to address systemic inequities. He deserves credit for surrounding himself with social movement advocates, who have greatly improved his approaches to a range of issues.
Our job is to make sure he understands where he falls short--so we can make maximum use of what may well be a once-in-a generation chance to build a truly equitable society.
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