Letter to President Joe Biden - Democratic Women's Caucus Leads Letter to President Biden Urging Prioritization of Child Care Relief and Recovery in Reconciliation Packages

Letter

Dear President Biden,
Thank you for your leadership and urgency in advancing a relief package that honors the
sacrifices made by essential workers and provides our communities with the resources necessary
to crush the virus, stabilize the economy and build back better. We urge you to include $100
billion in reconciliation packages to not only stabilize child care for families and early educators,
but also lay the groundwork for moving toward universal child care and early learning.
As you know, the pandemic has laid bare the fault lines in our society. Those who have always
been the most vulnerable, including women and people of color, have been disproportionately
impacted due to institutionalized racism and sexism as well as years of chronic underfunding,
including in the caregiving economy. You have led with purpose and vision in prioritizing the
need for structural change to build a more just and equitable future. With one in three workers
having a child, we know there is no rebuilding our economy without rebuilding and
strengthening child care.

Child care and early education are investments that support our communities today and lay the
groundwork for children and families' long-term success. Quality care facilitates the ability of
parents and other caregivers to work while allowing children to learn and thrive in their most
formative years of brain development and during non-school hours as they get older. Yet, even
before the pandemic, a child care crisis was unfolding across our nation, making the sector
vulnerable to collapse. Child care was unaffordable, costing more than in-state college tuition in
half of states and eating up 35 percent of income for low-wage families. It was inaccessible, with
half of the country living in a child care desert and families waiting years on waitlists to secure
care. Compounding these challenges is the fact that child care workers -- educators responsible
for our children's growth and development -- were being paid an average of $29,900 per year and
relying on public benefits for basic needs. These factors were worse for families and workers of
color, who faced higher barriers to accessing and affording care, while being paid lower wages in
the child care workforce. Simply put, the status quo was unsustainable.

The pandemic made a bad situation worse, with women and people of color paying the price. In
fact, one study showed that without further action the economy is at risk of losing more than
$64.5 billion per year in women's lost wages and economic activity. At the beginning of the
pandemic, experts estimated at least $9.6 billion per month was needed to sustain the industry,
yet Congress, hamstrung by Senate Republicans, provided just $3.5 billion until December or the
equivalent of 11 days of relief over nine months. As a result, there are 171,400 fewer child care
workers today than in February and a November survey by the National Association for the
Education of Young Children (NAEYC) found that 42 percent of respondents that are still open
have gone into debt by putting expenses on their personal credit cards. The expense of providing
safe care has also risen since the initial estimate of relief needed, as providers shoulder the costs
of cleaning supplies, personal protective equipment (PPE), and personnel while operating at
reduced capacity with lower revenues. If we do not right this wrong and inject at least $40 billion
in immediate child care stabilization funds, we are at risk of exacerbating the harm and losing
half of our nation's child care capacity.

However, we cannot simply put a band-aid over a fundamentally broken n system. We must seize
the opportunity to advance the critical fixes envisioned in the landmark Child Care for Working
Families Act, estimated at $60 billion per year. These changes would not only dramatically
expand affordable child care and early learning options but also increase pay for workers who
have proven to be essential and facilitate more high-quality providers. Making these changes
would finally acknowledge that child care is a public good -- a collective responsibility that is
beneficial for our children's health and wellbeing, the economy, and our future.

This significant investment would also acknowledge that child care is a gender and racial justice
issue. Two million fewer women are in the labor force now than before the pandemic, in part due
to caregiving responsibilities. In September, a period coinciding with the return to distance
learning, four times as many women as men left the workforce, and in December all the jobs lost
in the economy were held by women. Moreover, nearly 40 percent of child care workers are
Black women and Latinas and 17 percent are immigrants. Indigenous women are also
disproportionately represented in the child care workforce at twice the rate of their representation
in the overall workforce. Furthermore, it is important to note that the undervaluation of the child
care industry has its roots in slavery, which forced Black women to nurse and care for children of
white landowners, while being forcibly separated from their own children. The policies that
followed restricted work options for Black women, immigrant women and other women of color
to child care and other domestic jobs, institutionalizing low wages in this sector. As we strive
toward racial and gender justice, the care economy must be central to the conversation.

Finally, passing this legislation would unfetter our economy, which prior to the pandemic was
already losing $57 billion each year in productivity and revenue due to child care -- roughly the
cost of the proposal that lays the groundwork for a child care system that works for everyone.
Indeed, by allowing parents to work, attend college or job training programs, quality child care
will nourish our children and support parental employment while growing our Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) and benefiting the country on the whole. Since moving toward universal child
care impacts both spending and future revenues, budget reconciliation is the perfect avenue for
advancing these proposals whose time has come.

Thank you for your attention and consideration of this request. We stand ready to assist as you
continue your work on behalf of women and families.

Source