Access to affordable, high-quality child care is essential to ensuring that women can return to the workforce after the pandemic and rebuild financial security for themselves and their families. The federal Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) helps families meet their out-of-pocket, work-related child and dependent care expenses, and temporary improvements in the American Rescue Plan Act will help millions of women and families meet these costs in 2021. But in addition to these temporary CDCTC improvements, we need to:

          • Make the improvements permanent so that low- and moderate-income families don’t lose the benefits of the expanded credit; and
          • Invest in direct child care assistance in order to build a child care system that meets the needs of children, families, and the child care workforce.