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Floor Speech
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Ms. SMITH. Madam President, I rise with my colleagues today to say that childcare is a necessity for working families, and it is in all of our interests to make sure that families have a safe, affordable, high- quality place for their little ones. And that is why we need to step up and make sure that we provide support for childcare as we contemplate next steps for an emergency supplemental budget.
So for decades, Minnesotans have struggled to find childcare they can afford. Even before the pandemic, families told me that it cost them as much to pay for a year of daycare as to send their child to the University of Minnesota for a year.
I mean, of course, these young families haven't had years to save to pay for that childcare. So they can't afford over $12,000 a year, and that is even if they can find a good, safe place for their infants and toddlers.
Then, of course, when the pandemic hit, family care providers came into my office to tell me that their businesses were about to collapse. And then what happened? Congress took crucial action. We came together to pass emergency relief so that providers could pay their bills and keep their doors open, and families had a place for their children. These relief programs were absolutely necessary to help childcare providers keep their doors open and to operate during those unprecedented times.
So here is the good news. Our efforts were a huge success. Minnesota providers, from the smallest of small businesses operating out of their homes to larger childcare centers, all tell me that they would not have survived without this help, and that is true not just in Minnesota but all over the country.
Just in Minnesota, the emergency childcare stabilization grants kept over 8,000 childcare providers going. It kept them going. They reached over 200,000 kids just in Minnesota, but also in every State. From Alaska to Alabama, every State saw really tremendous benefits. In fact--this is interesting--96 percent of childcare providers that got help from these stabilization grants say that it helped them to stay open and operating.
So, colleagues, here is our challenge. On September 30, these programs expired, but the deep challenges that families and childcare providers face are still there. So we are back in the soup because, without help to these providers, they are back at risk themselves, and they face really terrible choices, as Senator Murray just described. Do they try to cut the pay for these workers, who are some of the lowest paid, underpaid workers--primarily women, primarily women of color-- anyplace in the country. So that is one option--pay cuts for those workers who are struggling already themselves. Or do they try to increase prices, which we know will drive some families away because they literally cannot afford what it costs? Or, as Senator Murray says, do they just fold up? Do they just go out of business? Do they give up?
And if that happens, we know what we will see. We will see more women leaving the workforce at a time when many Minnesota businesses are telling me that they are struggling to find the talent that they need to grow their businesses.
So, colleagues, we took decisive action to bolster our Nation's caregiving infrastructure, and we got great results. And, now, we cannot afford to lose the progress that we made.
This is an issue that I think we all know people are paying attention to. In Minnesota and all over the country, they are noticing this. Childcare is one of the top issues that I hear about from people when I am home. I hear it from families in rural Minnesota who are driving 50 miles to take their kids to childcare. I hear it from families who are paying more than a third of their incomes to cover the costs of care for two children, and I hear it from employers and economic development professionals who want to hire and retain great talent, but they know that they can't do that unless there is a childcare center in their community that people can rely on.
So this is about our kids, but it is also about our economy. A recent study found that our broken childcare system cost the economy $122 billion a year in lost earnings, productivity, and revenue. That is every year--$122 billion.
So if you think about the return on investment for providing the grants to stabilize these childcare centers so that they are there for our families, it is so clear what the right thing to do is.
We can fix this. We know what to do because we did it once and it worked, and now we just need to do it again.
Now, I think that everyone in this room knows that we need a long- term solution to our childcare crisis, and many of us are working on that. But, in the meantime, right now, families don't have time to wait. We know what to do. We know how to help parents. We know how to keep childcare providers open.
And so I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle: Let's take what we know worked, and let's do it again. Join us in providing urgently needed support for childcare. Join us for the good of our families, for the good of our babies and toddlers, and for childcare providers and for our whole country.
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