In this moment, the future of our rights, our bodily autonomy, our freedom feels uncertain. What we do next will make a difference for decades to come.
NWLC Urges Congress to Fight for Care Investments in the Final Reconciliation Package
The following is a statement by Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC):
“The decision to leave child care – and other meaningful investments that would reduce the cost of living for women and families – out of reconciliation is not only misguided, it is unconscionable. We are in year three of a national crisis that pressure-tested a child care system already in decline, causing devastating results across the country for providers and families alike.
The cost of child care alone has risen at twice the rate of inflation for decades, and continues to create impossible situations for families. Women’s paid-labor participation is the lowest it’s been in decades, thanks to the lack of affordable, high-quality child care that pushed hundreds of thousands of women out of the workforce. Spikes in operating costs forced many child care providers to close or scale down, and providers – who are disproportionately Black, brown, and immigrant women – urgently need fair pay and good working conditions.
While we applaud Congress for making the wealthy and big corporations pay a fairer share of taxes, failing to invest in care means Congress has chosen to let women and families continue struggling. We deserve more, demand more, and refuse to be sidelined any longer. Policies to lower the cost of prescription drugs and address our climate crisis are also long overdue, and we believe can happen at the same time as Congress doing more to ensure that women can fully participate in the labor market. We urge Congress to put child care and home care investments back into the economic reconciliation package before a final vote.”