NWLC & The Network Applaud Inclusion of Emergency Child Care Funding in President Biden’s Supplemental Funding Request to Congress
WASHINGTON – The Biden administration released a supplemental funding request to Congress last week that reiterated the administration’s request for $16 billion in emergency child care funding.
The administration’s request for $16 billion in emergency child care funding, which they first called for last October, comes after child care advocates, including the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) and Child Care for Every Family Network (The Network), pushed the administration and Congress to secure this funding in order to mitigate the impacts of expired federal stabilization dollars last September.
“We applaud the White House’s renewed call for emergency child care funding in its latest supplemental request to Congress. Since the expiration of child care funding last September, early educators and families have continued to struggle to make ends meet and afford quality care. Congress must now come together to swiftly pass this critical funding to help stabilize the child care industry” said Melissa Boteach, Vice President of Child Care/Early Learning and Income Security at the National Women’s Law Center.
“Impacted families, child care providers, and organizers across the country have been pushing for emergency action to replenish the child care funding that expired in 2023. We’re so glad to see the Biden Administration renew their request for $16 billion in emergency child care funding. Our kids, families, early educators, and economy can’t continue to function in crisis. Congress must act to now to provide these urgently-needed resources to stabilize our current child care system and continue to work with us to create a new system that has robust and permanent funding and centers families, kids, and providers who are Black, brown, Indigenous, and/or people of color. We know from recent polling that 73% of all voters support a totally redesigned child care system that guarantees free care for every family and good wages and benefits for providers. All eyes are on Congress, especially the House Republicans who have thus far obstructed progress. We need this emergency funding to move forward without delay,” said Andrea Palusa and Erica Gallegos, Co-Directors of The Network.
Since the expiration of American Rescue Plan Act stabilization funding for child care last September (colloquially known as the “child care funding cliff”), child care providers across the country have had to raise their prices or close their doors permanently — further shrinking an already limited supply of affordable child care.
A recent data analysis from NWLC released last month suggests that the funding cliff is making it harder for families to access child care.
The analysis, which was also cited in a White House report released last week, found an overall increase in the share of parents who reported not having access to child care following the funding cliff last September. This increase was driven by states that didn’t allocate state funding to fill the gap left by the expired federal child care funding.
In contrast, the share of parents unable to access child care barely rose in states that did fill in the gap left by the expired federal funds.
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