[Senate Hearing 117-182]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 117-182
SUPPORTING CHILDREN, WORKERS
AND FAMILIES BY STRENGTHENING
AMERICA'S CHILD CARE SECTOR
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HEARING
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION,
LABOR, AND PENSIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
ON
EXAMINING SUPPORTING CHILDREN, WORKERS AND FAMILIES BY STRENGTHENING
AMERICA'S CHILD CARE SECTOR
__________
APRIL 27, 2021
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
46-762 PDF WASHINGTON : 2022
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COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS
PATTY MURRAY, Washington, Chair
BERNIE SANDERS (I), Vermont RICHARD BURR, North Carolina,
ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania Ranking Member
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin RAND PAUL, M.D., Kentucky
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
TIM KAINE, Virginia BILL CASSIDY, M.D., Louisiana
MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
TINA SMITH, Minnesota MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada ROGER MARSHALL, M.D., Kansas
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
JOHN HICKENLOOPER, Colorado MITT ROMNEY, Utah
TOMMY TUBERVILLE, Alabama
JERRY MORAN, Kansas
Evan T. Schatz, Staff Director
David P. Cleary, Republican Staff Director
John Righter, Deputy Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS
TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2021
Page
Committee Members
Murray, Hon. Patty, Chair, Committee on Health, Education, Labor,
and Pensions, Opening statement................................ 1
Burr, Hon. Richard, Ranking Member, a U.S. Senator from the State
of North Carolina, Opening statement........................... 3
Witnesses
Jones-Taylor, Myra, Dr., Chief Policy Officer, Zero to Three,
Washington, DC................................................. 6
Prepared statement........................................... 8
Summary statement............................................ 13
Perry, Susan Gale, Chief Deputy Secretary, North Carolina
Department of Health and Human Services, Raleigh, NC........... 14
Prepared statement........................................... 16
Summary statement............................................ 27
Dasja, Reed, Parent, New Orleans, LA............................. 27
Prepared statement........................................... 29
Summary statement............................................ 30
Khan, Khadija Lewis, Executive Director, Beautiful Beginnings
Child Care Center, Providence, RI.............................. 31
Prepared statement........................................... 33
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Response by Myra Jones-Taylor to questions of:
Senator Murray............................................... 54
Senator Lujan................................................ 55
Senator Rosen................................................ 56
Response by Susan Gale Perry to questions of:
Senator Rosen................................................ 57
Response by Kadija Lewis Khan to questions of:
Senator Lujan................................................ 59
Senator Rosen................................................ 60
SUPPORTING CHILDREN, WORKERS
AND FAMILIES BY STRENGTHENING
AMERICA'S CHILD CARE SECTOR
----------
Tuesday, April 27, 2021
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in
room 216, Hart Senate Office Building, Hon. Patty Murray, Chair
of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Murray [presiding], Casey, Baldwin,
Kaine, Hassan, Smith, Rosen, Lujan, Hickenlooper, Burr,
Collins, Cassidy, Braun, and Scott.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MURRAY
The Chair. Good morning. The Senate Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions Committee will please come to order. Today
we are holding a hearing on our Nation's childcare crisis.
Ranking Member Burr and I will each have an opening statement
and then we will introduce today's witnesses. After the
witnesses give their testimony, Senators will each have five
minutes for a round of questions. And before we begin, as
always, I want to work through the COVID-19 safety protocols in
place.
We will follow the advice of the Attending Physician and
the Sergeant-at-Arms in conducting this hearing. We are all
very grateful to our Clerks and everyone who has worked hard to
get this set up and to help everyone stay healthy and safe.
Committee Members are seated at least six feet apart and some
Senators are participating by video conference. And while we
are unable to have the hearing fully open to the public or
media for in-person attendance yet, live video is available on
our Committee website at help.senate.gov. And if you are in
need of accommodations, including closed captioning, you can
reach out to the Committee or the Office of Congressional
Accessibility Services.
I would also like to thank Senator Burr for working with me
in a bipartisan way to hold this HELP Committee's first
childcare hearing in years. This is long overdue. I know this
issue is important to Senator Burr and every Member of this
Committee given its impact on so many families and workers. I
look forward to more conversations about what this Committee
and the Senate can do to address the childcare needs of
millions of families. We are here today for people like Patty
Lou. She is a mother from South Seattle that I spoke with last
week. Early last year, Patty got her dream job. Then the
pandemic hit, her childcare provider closed, and her employer
laid her off because she had to work fewer hours in order to
care for her kids. Unfortunately, her story is not unique, not
even close. Dasja Reed is here today as a witness to share her
own story of childcare challenges.
Millions of parents have lost hours, wages, and jobs during
this pandemic because they cannot get quality, affordable,
accessible childcare. Studies show that childcare was the
primary reason people left the workforce during this pandemic.
This problem has been worse for working moms. Nearly half were
forced to take unpaid leave to care for their children, and one
in 10 quit their jobs due to this pandemic, a majority of whom
cited childcare as the reason. And the numbers are even worse
for women who are paid low income, women who work part time
jobs, and women of color. And at the same time, this pandemic
has highlighted how important childcare is to build an economy
that works for working families.
It has also devastated the childcare sector by jeopardizing
childcare for 4.5 million children, closing more than 20,000
childcare centers and forcing one fifth of childcare workers
out of work. This loss has been deeply damaging to the families
who rely on these providers, childcare workers, the vast
majority of whom are women, and businesses who are losing
employees who can't find or afford childcare. It is especially
hard on communities of color as half of childcare businesses
are minority owned and nearly half of childcare workers are
women of color. I have been speaking with childcare providers
throughout this pandemic about the support that they need to
keep their doors open, and it is clear that COVID-19 has made
things harder. But make no mistake, childcare was in crisis
before this pandemic.
One mom in Washington State spoke about reaching out to 20
to 30 childcare providers over 5 years, switching providers
three different times and driving 45 minutes both ways to get
childcare for her daughter so she could go to work. And for
many families, even that is not an option. Over half of our
country lives in a childcare desert or a community with an
undersupply of licensed childcare options. And for families
with low incomes, families of color, and rural families,
childcare is even less available. In Washington State, there
are over 50,000 children under age five across Benton,
Columbia, Franklin, Grant, Kittitas, Walla Walla, and Yakima
counties. But even before the pandemic, childcare was only
available for less than half of those kids. And even if
families have a childcare provider within reach, it is often
far too expensive. In DC and 29 states, childcare costs more
than in-state college tuition, including in Washington State,
where the average yearly cost for childcare is nearly $15,000.
For families with low incomes, childcare costs over a third of
their income.
While families are paying too much of their incomes for
childcare, childcare workers are being paid far too little.
These workers are doing the incredibly important job of caring
for and educating children, so parents are able to go to work
and provide for their families, but only making, on average,
$11.00 an hour and they rarely have any benefits. We talk about
crumbling infrastructure when it comes to roads and bridges,
but we have never really had childcare infrastructure in the
first place in this country, which has cost our Nation $57
billion in lost revenue, productivity, and wages each year. It
costs parents who have to forego careers and job opportunities
or struggle to put food on the table because they can't afford
the childcare they need to find a job.
It especially costs parents of children with disabilities
and women of color who are much more likely to be unable to
look for a higher paying job because they can't find or afford
childcare. And it costs our children who miss out on high
quality, early education that can help them grow and thrive.
With costs so high, we cannot afford inaction. This issue is
personal to me. I know what it is like to have a sick child and
have to talk with your husband or partner about who will miss
work to watch the kids. I know what it is like to work at an
early education program. Early childhood programs are part of
what I first--what got me into politics in the first place, to
save a co-op preschool program that helped families like mine.
It is why I worked in a bipartisan way to secure the biggest
ever increase in Federal childcare funding in 2018.
It is why during COVID I fought to secure over $50 billion
in funding for childcare to make sure our childcare sector can
survive the pandemic, keep hundreds of thousands of providers
who serve millions of children from closure, and help almost 1
million families across the country afford quality childcare.
And it is why I am continuing to fight to pass my Child Care
for Working Families Act, which will ensure childcare is
affordable for working families. It will expand access to
preschool programs for all three-and four-year-olds and improve
the supply and quality of care for all children and increase
compensation and provide training for childcare workers. This
legislation will jumpstart our economy by creating 770,000 new
childcare jobs, helping 1.6 million parents, primarily mothers,
go back to work and lifting 1 million families out of poverty.
Because the reality is, childcare is a critical part of our
infrastructure.
We have 21.5 million workers who have a child under the age
of six. They need the basics to be able to do their jobs. And
the basic does mean bridges and roads, but they absolutely also
mean childcare. Ask any mom, ask any parent, ask Dasja Reed or
Patty Lou and they will tell you, a road won't do you much good
if you can't find safe childcare for your kid. If we are going
to rebuild from this crisis stronger and fairer, if we are
going to build an economy that truly works for working
families, we can't do it without childcare for every working
family. With that, I will recognize Ranking Member Burr for his
opening remarks.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BURR
Senator Burr. Well, good morning, Chair Murray. I thank you
for working with me on this hearing. I am glad that we are
coming together today in a bipartisan effort to discuss the
crucial role childcare plays in our economy. Bottom line,
Americans can't wait in the can't work if they don't have safe,
reliable care for their family. I hope, rather than partisan
reconciliation processes, that you and I can listen to each
other's ideas and work together on meaningful solutions in
legislative form that stabilizes and strengthens childcare and
respects and honors parent choice in the care of their young
children.
I remain committed to seeking workable bipartisan solutions
on childcare. Beginning with my partnership on this Committee
with Senator Mikulski, we passed significant health and safety
reforms to the Child Care and Development Block Grant program
in 2014, a program that had gone almost two decades without
reauthorization. And for the last few Congresses, Senator King
and I have been working on the Pack Act, a bipartisan,
bicameral proposal to make childcare more affordable for
families. I look forward to hearing the experiences from our
witnesses today, and I thank you for being here to offer us
ideas for building a better childcare program that works for
parents, children, providers, and employers.
I want to first highlight and think childcare providers is
the one education sector that has never abandoned working
parents and their kids during COVID. Childcare understood, even
in a pandemic, many jobs can't be done remotely and that
parents have to have a safe and reliable place to leave their
children so they can work. To maintain stable employment or
participate in an education or training program, parents with
young children absolutely have to have childcare. Breakdowns in
childcare result in parents leaving work early, being late to
work, missing a shift or a full day of work, and being
distracted while at work. This leads not just to workers
missing out on income and promotions, but incredibly lost
productivity for employers. While COVID stay at home orders
forced Americans to work from home, nurses, EMT, firefighters,
grocery store clerks, and all other essential workers had to be
on time each day and every day and not distracted. Childcare
understood this.
Throughout the entire pandemic, childcare stayed opened to
care for the children of other essential workers. For almost a
year before schools and their unions even got around to
figuring out childcare implementation, they implemented
numerous enhanced health and safety protocols that by and
large, even in the absence of vaccines, kept children safe and
staff safe. And when K through 12 closed its doors to students,
childcare, in addition to caring for children birth to five,
opened up for the school-aged children who needed a safe and
supportive place to do their online learning. A key lesson
learned from COVID-19 is that K through 12 has a great deal to
learn from the childcare industry. Staying open during the
pandemic has come at a huge financial cost to providers. Even
before the pandemic, providers operated on a razor thin margin.
Additional staff and supplies to implement health and safety
protocols on top of recurring fixed cost and in an environment
of significantly reduced enrollment, ensured that everyday
childcare remained open. It was operating well into the red.
In the last year, in three different bills, Congress has
provided approximately $50 billion in emergency childcare
funding to stabilize providers financially so that as parents
return to work, childcare is available to them. As of today, we
have limited to no insight from HHS as to how states plan to
use the majority of these dollars and what effect these dollars
are having on providers being open and parents being able to
find and afford reliable care that meets their needs. As we
look to build a stronger childcare sector for the future, I
think understanding how this incredible influx of new dollars
is being used is absolutely crucial to policymakers.
We also need to understand how the flexibilities given to
states to support both parents and providers during the
pandemic might best be continued on an ongoing basis. We need
to continue to allow states to more quickly respond to the
unique needs that they see on the ground rather than waiting
for a national emergency or the hopes of a reauthorization
happening on time. Most critical, however, is that we
understand what parents--that we understand parents wants and
needs for childcare going forward. I cannot say enough,
parents' choice and flexibility are paramount. Nothing is more
personal than the choice a parent makes of who will take care
of their infant, toddler, or four-year-old. Because children
develop on different timelines, parents may prefer one type of
provider for one child and another type of provider for another
child. And we need options for parents to meet their schedules.
One size fits all does not work in child care. Parents, not
Government, know their children best. Whatever we do in
childcare policy, we must respect and support parents' choices.
Additionally, it is essential we understand any unintended
consequences of good meaning, but poorly through thought,
through policy ideas that may drive up childcare cost and make
it more difficult for providers to operate and enter the field
or make it even harder to attract and retain a qualified
workforce. There is just one example of potential unintended
consequences is a poorly designed universal kindergarten
program.
Pushing four-year-olds out of developmentally supportive
community childcare programs and into an already poorly
performing K through 12 system runs the risk of disrespecting
the wants of parents, significantly driving up the cost of
already expensive infant and toddler care, and setting young
children back in their social, emotional, and academic growth.
We presently have a rich and diverse mix delivery system for
childcare and early education in this country. Centers,
family--child care homes, for profit, nonprofit, religious,
large, small.
As we look to improve access, affordability, and quality in
childcare and stabilizing better support of a labor intensive,
thin margin industry, we must do so in ways that buildup the
things we have right, respecting parents' choices in the care
of their young children through a rich and diverse mix delivery
system. I hope today is a start and not the end of a bipartisan
conversation on how to make childcare better for America's
working families.
I look forward to working with our witnesses, with Chair
Murray, and more importantly, all the Committee Members on an
issue critical for working parents and for their children. I
thank the Chair. I thank our witnesses. I yield back.
The Chair. Thank you very much, Senator Burr. And thank you
to all of our witnesses for being here today. I will join with
Senator Burr to introduce our witnesses. And I will start with
Dr. Myra Jones-Taylor. Dr. Jones-Taylor is the Chief Policy
Officer at the ZERO TO THREE, where she works to promote
policies supporting healthy child development for infants and
toddlers, and the former commissioner of early childhood for
Connecticut, where she led the state agency responsible for
early care and education, home visiting, early intervention,
and childcare licensing. Welcome, Dr. Jones-Taylor. Thank you
for joining us today. And I will turn it over to Senator Burr
to introduce Susan Gale Perry.
Senator Burr. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am pleased to
welcome Susan Gale Perry to our hearing today. Ms. Perry is the
Chief Deputy Secretary for Opportunity and Well-being at the
North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Susan
provides leadership, senior leadership to North Carolina DHHS,
which has 17,000 employees, an annual budget of $20 billion,
serving as home to Medicaid, public and mental health, state
operated hospitals, economic, adult, child welfare services,
and early childhood education.
Susan has a full plate. Susan has several decades of
experience leading complex early childhood and human services
systems at the local, state, and national level. She previously
served as Executive Director for the Delaware Office of Early
Learning, Founding Executive for the North Carolina Early
Childhood Foundation, Senior Director of the North Carolina
Smart Start, and Deputy Executive Director at Child Care Aware
of America. Susan, welcome. I look forward to your testimony.
The Chair. Thank you. Ms. Perry, welcome. We are very glad
to have you with us today. Next, I would like to introduce
Dasja Reed. Ms. Reed is a single mother with a two-year-old son
from New Orleans, Louisiana, who understands personally why
today's topic is so important. Ms. Reed was forced to leave her
job during the pandemic due to the closure of her son's
childcare program last March.
Welcome, Ms. Reed, and thank you for joining us today to
speak about your experience. Next, I would like to introduce
Ms. Khadija Louis Khan. Ms. Khan has served as Executive
Director of Beautiful Beginnings Child Care Center in
Providence, Rhode Island, for over two decades. Welcome to you
as well, Ms. Khan. Thank you for joining us. We will now begin
our testimony. And Dr. Jones-Taylor, we will begin with you.
You may begin your opening statement.
STATEMENT OF MYRA JONES-TAYLOR, CHIEF POLICY OFFICER, ZERO TO
THREE, WASHINGTON, DC
Dr. Jones-Taylor. Thank you. Good morning, Chair Murray,
Ranking Member Burr, and other distinguished Members of the
Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. My
name is Myra Jones-Taylor, and I am the Chief Policy Officer at
ZERO TO THREE, the leading national nonprofit that has worked
for more than four decades to ensure that babies, toddlers, and
their families have the resources and support they need to
thrive. I am incredibly grateful to be here testifying before
the Committee today about the long-standing childcare
challenges this country has faced and the impact of those
challenges on families, early childhood professionals, and the
healthy development of young children.
It is especially good to be back here. Senator Burr, I
remember testifying many years ago after the reauthorization of
CCDBG with you and Senator Mikulski. So, thank you for having
me back. After the past year, we have all been acutely aware of
COVID-19's impact on childcare, but childcare before the
pandemic was already in crisis, summarized by one word
unaffordable. Unaffordable for families where cost was often a
barrier to finding care, and neighborhoods determine the
quality and range of care available. Over half of Americans
live in childcare deserts with too few licensed places for the
young children who live there.
Before the pandemic, we heard stories like that of two
parents whose income was just over the limit to receive the
subsidy through CCDBG, and the cheapest quality care they were
able to find cost one and a half times their monthly rent. And
so instead they had to put their infant in care with unsafe
childcare ratios, stacked child ratios in order to be able to
support their families and work. Unaffordable for early
childhood educators, where wages average less than $12 an hour
and many must turn to public assistance, and inequities abound.
Within a workforce disproportionately made up of women of
color, those women are paid less than the average, making $0.78
cents less than their white counterparts per hour.
Dedicated early childhood educators often are forced to
leave the profession they love. One such educator told us she
left because even with a master's degree and 10 years of
experience, she made less than $30,000 a year, and her monthly
take home pay equaled the cost of her own two children's care.
Unaffordable for our children, whose brain development is
shaped by the relationships they form from families--the
relationships they form. And too many young children,
especially from families from low incomes and children of
color, lack consistent access to quality care that facilitates
early learning.
Finally, it is unaffordable for our economy, which loses
$57 billion dollars a year in lost wages, work productivity,
economic activity, and tax revenue because of insufficient
childcare. Women disproportionally bear the brunt of our
Nation's childcare crisis and drops in their workforce
participation could have long term effects on our economy. The
situation arises because it is simply impossible for the free
market to ensure all families that need it have access to
quality childcare, that compensates providers as the
professional or educators they are.
Our investments are nowhere near what they need to be to
support a stable, robust system. Parents can't afford to pay
more, and childcare providers can't afford to be paid in less.
Yet in almost every state, childcare subsidies are too low for
families to choose high quality care or for providers to pay
their staff competitively and invest in quality. The CCDBG
assists only one in seven eligible children, and we know the
eligibility levels are far lower than the actual need,
especially when you consider that only 4.2 percent of babies
and families with low and moderate income who could also really
use the support, actually receive subsidies. As a Nation, we
have a long way to go. COVID-19 simply exposed the system's
fragility.
Both providers and families have been on a never-ending
rollercoaster this past year, with providers struggling to stay
afloat and parents grappling with childcare closures and their
own shifting needs. This upheaval has affected the current
supply and challenges the ability to build for the future.
Funds provided for COVID relief, particularly the $50 billion
since December 2020, which we are so grateful, will stabilize
the industry for providers and families and even lay some
critical foundations. But whether we build a strong childcare
system all of us need depends on the direction of our national
policy, what we do today.
We need comprehensive action from Congressional leaders to
shape a stronger, more resilient future for childcare funding
as a public good. And this system should ensure that all
children can receive high quality care that supports their
healthy development, families have options for high quality
settings that best meet their needs and the needs of their
children, all families who need help paying for childcare have
the financial support they need, and early childhood
professionals receive the support, resources, and care
compensation they need to provide high quality care.
Beyond the macroeconomic impacts of COVID-19 on the
childcare system and the economy, I think it is also critical
to raise the trauma of the pandemic has left in its wake.
Recent research has shown not only heightened mental health
concerns for children and families, but also a doubling in
places, tripling of rates of depression among childcare
providers and elevated levels of stress, especially among
providers of color. Fortunately, there is now solid data
showing that early childhood mental health consultation is not
only effective in supporting children, parents, and providers,
but it is also very cost efficient. The evidence is clear.
It is past time to invest in childcare as the public good
we know it is and build a stronger, more equitable system for
current and future generations. We all benefit when we give our
children the best possible start in life. I thank you for the
opportunity to testify today and I look forward to your
questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Jones-Taylor follows:]
prepared statement of myra jones-taylor
Good morning Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr, and other
distinguished Members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions.
My name is Myra Jones-Taylor and I am the Chief Policy Officer at
ZERO TO THREE, the leading national nonprofit working to ensure that
babies, toddlers and their families have the resources and support they
need to thrive. For more than four decades, ZERO TO THREE has worked to
translate the science of early childhood development into resources,
tools, and responsive policies for millions of parents, professionals
and policymakers.
I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to testify before the
Committee today about the longstanding child care challenges this
country has faced and the impact of those challenges on families, early
childhood professionals, and the healthy development of the children
together they both nurture and care for. In addition to highlighting
the structural challenges that have existed in the child care system,
both pre-COVID and during the ongoing pandemic crisis--I look forward
to sharing our vision for the stronger, more equitable, and more
resilient child care system that this Committee can play a key role in
shaping for current and future generations.
The Status Quo of Child Care in the U.S.
Much attention over the past year has been focused, justifiably, on
the devastating impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the child care
sector. While this is a critically important story, that I will touch
on in more detail later in my testimony, the narrative around the
pandemic obscures the fact that for far too many families, children and
early educators, child care was already in a crisis state long before
March of last year. As we work together to apply the lessons learned in
the pandemic and build a stronger, more resilient child care system for
the future, we have to clearly understand these long-standing
challenges.
If I had to summarize our child care status quo prior to the
pandemic in one word it would be ``unaffordable.''
Our child care status quo was unaffordable for families. Even for
those who were fortunate enough to find care in their communities that
met their needs and those of their children, the cost of care is too
often an insurmountable barrier to access. One family who shared their
story with us talked about beginning their child care search during the
early stages of pregnancy--and contacting more than 30 providers who
did not take infants or had waiting lists up to 2 years. Another
family, making just over the limit to receive a subsidy through CCDBG
shared that the cheapest care they were able to find cost 1.5 times
their monthly rent, and that they had to put their infant in care with
unsafe staff-child ratios in order to be able to work to support their
family financially. According to research by the Center for American
Progress, over half of Americans live in communities considered child
care deserts--where there are more than three times as many children
under 5 as there are licensed child care slots. \1\ Center-based care
for infants and toddlers costs more than in-state tuition and fees at a
public four-year college in 30 states and the District of Columbia
\2\--and those costs hit families earlier in the careers, who
frequently earn less money and fewer savings built up.
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\1\ Malik, R., Hamm, K., Schocet, L., Novoa, C., Workman, S., and
Jessen-Howard, S. (2018). America's Child Care Deserts in 2018. Center
for American Progress. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/early-
childhood/reports/2018/12/06/461643/americas-child-care-deserts-2018/.
\2\ Child Care Aware of America. (2020). The US and the High Cost
of Child Care. https://www.childcareaware.org/our-issues/research/the-
us-and-the-high-price-of-child-care-2019/.
Our child care status quo was unaffordable for the early education
professionals who make up the child care workforce--a workforce that is
disproportionately made up of women of color. One early educator who
shared her story with us told us that even with a master's degree and
10 years of experience, she made less than $30,000 a year--eventually
having to leave a job she loved when the cost of her own two children's
care equaled her monthly take-home pay. She reflected that when she was
in high school, she was told she could be anything she wanted to be,
and that it was a shame in the richest country in the world, she
couldn't be the two things she wanted to be the most at the same time--
a preschool teacher and a mother. On average, child care providers make
less than $12 per hour, and providers of color and those serving
infants and toddlers make even less. As a country, we compensate our
early educators so poorly that over half are enrolled in at least one
of the EITC, Medicaid or CHIP, SNAP, or TANF. \3\
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\3\ Center for the Study of Child Care Employment. (2018). Early
Childhood Workforce Index 2018. https://cscce.berkeley.edu/wp-content/
uploads/2018/06/2018-Index-Executive-Summary.pdf.
Our child care status quo was unaffordable for our children, whose
development is being rapidly shaped in the earliest years of their
lives. As infants and toddlers interact with their environments and
caregivers during the earliest years, their brains are making more than
one million neural connections every second--building a foundation for
all future development and learning. \4\ The health of this foundation
is shaped by the relationships children have with their caregivers, and
given that 62 percent of mothers with children under three were in the
workforce prior to the pandemic, \5\ the quality of child care
environments plays a critical role in supporting this foundational
brain development. High-quality care supports children's early
learning, cognitive and language development, social and emotional
development, and later school achievement--but unfortunately our child
care status quo leaves too many young children, especially for children
from families with low-income and children of color, without consistent
access to quality care. \6\
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\4\ Harvard University Center on the Developing Child. In Brief:
The Science of Early Childhood Development. https://
developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/inbrief-science-of-ecd/.
\5\ U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2019). Employment status of
mothers with own children under 3 years old by single year of age of
youngest child and marital status, 2017-2018 annual averages. https://
www.bls.gov/news.release/famee.t06.htm.
\6\ National Research Council and Institute of Medicine. (2000).
From neurons to neighborhoods: The science of early childhood
development. J.P. Schonkoff and D.A. Phillips, Eds, Board on Children,
Youth and Families; Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and
Education. National Academy Press.
Finally, our child care status quo was unaffordable for our broader
economy. When you add up wages, work productivity, economic activity
and tax revenue lost due to insufficient access to child care it comes
out to approximately $57 billion each year. \7\ As conversations in
Washington turn toward long-term investments and job creation, our
leaders must consider the foundational importance of child care in
ensuring those investments reach their maximum potential.
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\7\ Ready Nation, Council for a Strong America. (2019). Want to
Grow the Economy? Fix the Child Care Crisis. https://
www.strongnation.org/articles/780-want-to-grow-the-economy-fix-the-
child-care-crisis.
As we talk about these significant challenges that faced the child
care sector even before the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to focus
on why our current system was so unaffordable for parents, early
educators, children, and our broader economy. The answer to that
question is not particularly complicated, but it does demand a stronger
policy response than we have historically been willing to offer as a
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nation.
Simply put, it is exceedingly difficult, if not impossible for the
free market to ensure that all families who need it have access to
quality child care that compensates providers like the professional
early educators they are. As a simple, illustrative example, I ask you
to consider the staffing needed to operate a typical infant classroom.
The Federal Government recommends, and the majority of states'
basic licensing standards reflect, that for children under 12 months,
one trained adult should care for no more than 4 infants, and that 2
trained adults should always be present in a classroom of 6-8 infants.
\8\ These staff-child ratio and recommendations not only serve to keep
young children safe and healthy in care settings, but also facilitate
increased opportunities for age-appropriate activities and responsive
caregiving critical to supporting children's healthy development.
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\8\ Child Care.Gov. (2020). Ratios and Group Sizes.
At these low staff-child ratios, which again are critical for
keeping children safe and supporting their healthy development, the
existing child care system largely relies on private-paying parents to
fully cover the cost of staffing, physical operating space, food and
supplies, and insurance. Some states allow for higher staff-child
ratios and increase ratios and group sizes after age one. \9\ And while
providers can and do manage to survive on thin margins by subsidizing
some of the added costs of serving infants by operating more classrooms
for older children, who can be served with higher staff-child ratios,
the underlying mathematical impossibility of keeping care affordable
for families with infants and toddlers while ensuring fair compensation
for providers remains the same.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Hains, D. and Neuenswander, A. (2021). The State of Child Care
for Babies: The Need to do Better for our Youngest Children. https://
www.zerotothree.org/resources/3924-the-state-of-child-care-for-babies-
the-need-to-do-better-for-our-youngest-children?utm-medium=email&utm-
source=email-link&utm-content=resources-03162021&utm-campaign=policy-
center.
The Federal Government does provide some support for the child care
system, largely in the form of child care subsidies for families
through the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG). And these
supports can make a world of a difference for families who are
fortunate enough to receive them. Unfortunately, even with a much
needed, bipartisan increase in funding for the program in 2018--CCDBG
falls far short of meeting the needs of even the limited population of
children who are eligible. Just 1 in 7 federally-eligible children--
those with incomes below the 85th percentile of their state's median
income--received a subsidy through CCDBG in 2017, the latest year for
which data were available. \10\ Of the broader universe of low-and
moderate-income families with infants and toddlers who could benefit
from access to a subsidy if they were eligible, just 4.2 percent have
access to them, according to the latest data from ZERO TO THREE's State
of Babies Yearbook. \11\
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\10\ U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the
Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. (2020). Estimates of
child care eligibility and receipt for fiscal year 2017. https://
aspe.hhs.gov/system/files/pdf/264341/CY2017-Child-Care-Subsidy-
Eligibility.pdf.
\11\ ZERO TO THREE. (2021). State of Babies Yearbook 2021. https:/
/stateofbabies.org/.
It is also important to note that the value of child care subsidies
is insufficient in almost every state to offer eligible families the
opportunity to choose high quality care for their children, or to offer
providers enough funding to pay their staff competitively and invest in
quality. Just 4 states set their reimbursement rates for child care
assistance at or above the 75th percentile of current market rates in
2019. \12\ And those market rates do not even take in to account the
actual costs of providing high quality care, including providing fair
compensation to early educators.
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\12\ Schulman, K. (2019). Early Progress: State Child Care
Assistance Policies 2019. National Women's Law Center. https://nwlc-
ciw49tixgw5lbab.stackpathdns.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/NWLC-State-
Child-Care-Assistance-Policies-2019-final.pdf.
Ultimately, before the pandemic, our child care system could be
characterized as failing families, providers, children, and our broader
economic infrastructure. The market has clearly failed in this case to
create an adequate supply of affordable care for families or fair
compensation for providers, and absent sufficient public support, this
failure has forced parents and providers to subsidize the system with
high costs and unlivable wages. While there was welcome, widespread
acknowledgement from members of both parties about the need to fix
these challenges, even prior to the pandemic, it unfortunately took the
COVID-19 crisis to throw into sharp relief just how fragile and
vulnerable this status quo had left our child care sector.
Impact of COVID-19 on Child Care
The fragility of our child care system was brought into sharp focus
at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, as many providers
closed under public health orders at the onset of the pandemic, only to
re-open in conditions that made the already razor-thin margins they
operated under before untenable.
Higher costs due to the need to provide PPE for staff and lower
ratios and group sizes to mitigate the spread, combined with reduced
income from enrollments to drive many providers to closure. For those
that remained open, or re-opened, they often did so at great personal
sacrifice. The State of Babies Yearbook: 2021 shows a roller coaster of
trends in parental use of care and preferences during the pandemic,
adding to difficulties for providers to stabilize. \13\ A December
survey from the National Association for the Education of Young
Children reported that more than half of centers surveyed were losing
money every day they remained open--and many providers accrued personal
debt or drew down on their own personal savings to remain open to serve
working families in their communities. \14\ By January of this year--
more than 1 in 6 child care jobs had been lost, according to the Bureau
of Labor Statistics, threatening efforts to support a strong economic
recovery. \15\
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\13\ Id at xi.
\14\ National Association for the Education of Young Children.
(2020). Am I Next? Sacrificing to Stay Open, Child Care Providers Face
a Bleak Future Without Relief. https://www.naeyc.org/sites/default/
files/globally-shared/downloads/PDFs/our-work/public-policy-advocacy/
naeyc-policy-crisis-coronavirus-december-survey-data.pdf.
\15\ Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2021). The Employment
Situation--January 2021. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/
empsit-02052021.pdf.
The losses to the child care sector during the pandemic were felt
across the broader economy--for no group more than women. A survey from
the Chamber of Commerce released last December revealed that 6 percent
of working parents had left the workforce entirely as of last October,
with child care challenges being cited as the primary reason for doing
so. Of those surveyed, women were nearly twice as likely as men to have
declined a new job opportunity during the pandemic and more than four
times as likely to have left the workforce altogether. \16\ While
women's workforce participation numbers overall have recovered slightly
since their nadir in December, the critical fact remains that access to
child care access is essential to ensuring parents can participate
equally in the workforce.
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\16\ U.S. Chamber of Commerce. (2020). The Importance of Childcare
to U.S. Families and Businesses. https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/
press-release/importance-childcare-us-families-and-businesses.
Beyond the macro-level impacts of COVID-19 on the child care system
and the economy, I think it is also critical to raise here, the
traumatic individual impact the pandemic has had on individuals. The
COVID-19 pandemic has heightened stress and mental health needs for
young children, families, communities, and the child care providers who
serve them, especially among people of color. \17\ Recent research has
shown not only heightened mental health concerns for children and
families, but also a doubling or tripling of rates of depression among
child care providers and elevated stress levels, especially among child
care providers of color. \18\ The stressors are from COVID-19 itself
(e.g., illness, hospitalization, loss), economic impact (e.g., loss of
jobs, loss of child care, uncertain viability of the child care
industry), increased racism-motivated aggression (e.g., racist violence
and rhetoric), and more. Previous research has shown that as either
child/family stress or child care provider stress increases, so
increases preschool and child care expulsions and other forms of
exclusions, which have historically impacted all subgroups of young
children yet also been very racially disproportionate. \19\
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\17\ Gilliam, W.S., Malik, A.A., Shafiq, M., Klotz, M., Reyes, C.,
Humphries, J.E., Murray, T., Elharake, J.A., Wilkinson, D., & Omer,
S.B. (2021). COVID-19 transmission in US child care programs.
Pediatrics, 147(1). doi: 10.1542/peds.2020-031971; e2020031971.
\18\ Shafiq, M., et al. (2021). Mental health of child care
providers during COVID-19. Manuscript in preparation, Yale University.
\19\ Gilliam, W. and Shahar, G. (2006). Preschool and Child Care
Expulsion and Suspension: Rates and Predictors in One State. https://
medicine.yale.edu/childstudy/zigler/publications/
Gilliam%20and%20Shahar%20-
percent202006%20Preschool%20and%20Child%20Care%20Expulsion%20and%20Suspe
nsion-percent20Rates%20and%20Predictors%20in%20One%20State-251491-5379-
v3.pdf.
Fortunately, there is now solid data showing that early childhood
mental health consultation (ECMHC) is not only highly effective, but is
also very cost efficient to sustain. Statewide random-controlled trials
in both Connecticut (2016) \20\ and Ohio (2021) \21\ have shown that
ECMHC interventions can improve the mental health of young children in
as little of 2-3 months of intervention, including not only the target
children who promoted the request for mental health supports but also
the bystander children in the classroom. Additional information
suggests that ECMHC improves parent provider communication \22\ and
provider stress levels and burnout, \23\ areas of heightened concern,
while also increasing overall equity of interactions in child care
programs receiving this support. \24\ Of course, long-term, sustained
investments are needed to scale up access to early childhood mental
health consultation to the broader range of programs that could benefit
from it.
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\20\ Gilliam, W., Maupin, A., and Reyes, C. (2016). Early
Childhood Mental Health Consultation: Results of a statewide Random-
Controlled Evaluation. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27566116/.
\21\ Reyes, C. and Gilliam, W. (2021) Addressing challenging
behaviors in challenging environments: Findings from Ohio's early
childhood mental health consultation system. https://
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33762032/.
\22\ Reyes, C.R., Gilliam, W.S., Grossman-Kahn, S., & Drucker, G.
(2018). Parent perspectives on exclusionary discipline practices in
preschool. Report submitted to the New York City Department of Health &
Mental Hygiene. New Haven, CT: Yale Child Study Center, School of
Medicine.
\23\ Hepburn, K.S., Perry, D.F., Shivers, E.M., & Gilliam, W.S.
(2013). Early childhood mental health consultation as an evidence-based
practice: Where does it stand? Zero to Three, 33(5), 10-19.
\24\ Spielberger, J., Burkhardt, T., Winje, C., Pacheco-Applegate,
A., Gitlow, E., Carreon, E., Huang, L., Herriott, A., & Kakuyama-
Villaber, R. (2021). Evaluation of the Illinois Model of Infant and
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation Pilot. Chicago, IL: Chapin
Hall at the University of Chicago.
In the midst of highlighting the severe challenges the pandemic has
posed for children, families, and providers, I do want to take a moment
here to thank the Members of this Committee, and our broader
Congressional leadership, for recognizing the critical role child care
and responding boldly to address the worst of the COVID-inflected child
care crisis, including by providing $3.5 billion to the sector in the
CARES Act, $10 billion in the Coronavirus Relief and Relief
Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSA), and $39 billion in the
American Rescue Plan. These funds have and will continue to provide
much needed relief to providers who have either stayed open during the
pandemic or been forced to close due to the crisis, as well as much
needed relief to families who need help paying for and accessing care.
These funds were much needed to stabilize the sector, children, and
families from the worst impacts of the pandemic, including by
supporting increased access to mental health supports for children
feeling emotional distress from the pandemic. However, they were not
designed to be, nor are they sufficient to make the long-term, lasting
changes to the pre-pandemic status quo that failed too many parents,
children, and providers.
What's Next for Child Care?
If the child care system could be categorized as resting on a
faulty, unstable foundation prior to the pandemic, then COVID-19 was an
earthquake that revealed its fragility and shattered that foundation.
As we now work to rebuild and strengthen the child care sector as we
hopefully come out of the pandemic and return to normal, it would be
irresponsible and short-sighted for us to return to the pre-pandemic
status quo for child care, which left too many parents, providers, and
children behind. Instead, we must look to rebuild a stronger foundation
for the child care system, acknowledging its role as an essential
public good to maintain our economy, and built on principles of equity
for parents and providers and designed around an understanding of the
critical role child care plays in shaping children's development.
For far too long, we have allowed our fragile child care system to
be subsidized on the backs of unaffordable high costs for parents, and
unlivable, low wages for providers. For no other age group than our
youngest children, during their years of most rapid brain development,
do we expect most parents to take the lead in shouldering the full cost
of education and care. Neither parents nor providers have the capacity
to bear any additional burden for shouldering the weight of the
system--it is past time for our policymakers to invest in child care as
the public good it is.
In this moment, we need comprehensive action from our congressional
leaders to shape a stronger, more resilient future for child care. Such
a system should ensure that all children can receive high-quality care
that supports their healthy development. It should ensure families have
access to their choice of high-quality care settings that best meets
their needs and the needs of their children--including by proactively
building a supply of quality care in communities where one doesn't
exist. It should ensure that all families who need help paying for
child care have the financial support they need to afford quality
care--HHS sets 7 percent of family income as the Federal benchmark for
affordable child care. \25\ And it should ensure that early childhood
professionals in all settings receive the support, resources, and fair
compensation they need to both provide high quality care, including
supporting providers' and children's mental health while avoiding
exclusionary discipline practices that disproportionately affect Black
children.
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\25\ Federal Register, Vol. 81, No. 190. (2016). https://
www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2016-09-30/pdf/2016-22986.pdf.
I wish I could tell you that this type of system could be done on
the cheap through finding new efficiencies or tinkering around the
edges. But I would be lying if I said that. Additional tax credits
might help lower the cost of care for some families, but do nothing to
create a greater supply of high-quality care. And in a system where
cost is largely driven by low staff-child ratios that are needed to
protect children's health and safety and support their development,
there is no way to achieve cost savings through deregulation without
especially harming infants and toddlers. While such an investment might
be expensive, as I have already mentioned, the cost of doing nothing
and returning to the status quo is unaffordable for our families, our
educators and our economy. And importantly, the expense of supporting
families' access to high quality early childhood opportunities can be
more than recouped through the long term gains children and families
make as a result of those investments. Economists have found the annual
return on investment for high quality early childhood programs is a
high as 13 percent over the course of a child's life; \26\ and a recent
report from the National Women's Law Center and Columbia University
found that expanding access to affordable, high quality child care for
all who need it would increase the lifetime earnings for women with two
children by approximately $94,000, with Black and Latina women
benefiting the most. \27\
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\26\ Garcia, J.L., Heckman, J. Leaf, D.E., and Prados, M.J.
(2019). Quantifying the Life-cycle benefits of an influential early
childhood program. https://heckmanequation.org/www.assets/2017/01/
w23479.pdf.
\27\ Hartley, R., Chaudry, A., Boteach, M., Mitchell, E., and
Menefee, K. (2021). National Women's Law Center and Columbia University
Center on Poverty and Social Policy. A Lifetime's Worth of Benefits:
The Effects of Affordable, High-quality Child Care on Family Income,
the Gender Earnings Gap, and Women's Retirement Security. https://
nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/A-Lifetimes-Worth-of-Benefits-
Compliant.pdf.
The evidence is clear, it is past time we invest in child care as
the public good we know it is, and build a stronger, more equitable
system for current and future generations. We all benefit when we give
our children the best possible start in life. I thank you for the
opportunity to testify today and I look forward to taking your
questions.
______
[summary statement of myra jones-taylor]
Child care before the pandemic was already in crisis,
summarized by one word: unaffordable--
Y For families, where cost was often a barrier to
finding care and neighborhoods determined the level of
care available. Over half of Americans live in ``child
care deserts'' with too few regulated places for the
number of young children living there.
Y For early childhood educators, whose low wages mean
many must turn to public assistance. Inequities abound,
within a workforce disproportionately made up of women
of color, those women are paid less than the average,
as are infant-toddler teachers also are paid less, even
with credentials similar to preschool teachers.
Y For our children, whose brain development is shaped
by their environment, regardless of what we as adults
label it. Too many young children, especially from
families with low-income and children of color, lack
consistent access to quality care.
Y For our economy, where wages, work productivity,
economic activity and tax revenue lost due to
insufficient access to child care adds up to about $57
billion each year.
Almost impossible for free market to ensure all
families who need it have access to quality child care that
compensates providers as the professional early educators they
are.
Y CCDBG falls far short of meeting the needs of even
the limited population of children who are eligible,
serving just 1 in 7.
Y The value of child care subsidies is insufficient in
almost every state for families to choose high quality
care, or for providers to pay their staff competitively
and invest in quality.
COVID-19 exposed the system's fragility.
Y Many providers closed at the pandemic's onset, re-
opening in conditions making already razor-thin margins
untenable.
Y A NAEYC survey found more than half of centers
surveyed lost money every day, often accruing personal
debt or drawing down personal savings to remain open.
Y Funds provided for COVID relief, particularly $50
billion since December 2020, will stabilize the
industry for providers and families, while helping
build foundations for critical services such as early
childhood mental health support.
What's next for child care? We need comprehensive
action from congressional leaders to shape a stronger, more
resilient future for child care funded as a public good. This
system ensures:
Y All children can receive high-quality care that
supports their healthy development.
Y Families have options for high-quality care settings
that best meet their needs and the needs of their
children--including by proactively building a supply of
quality care in communities where one doesn't exist.
Y All families who need help paying for child care
have the financial support they need to afford quality
care--HHS sets 7 percent of family income as the
benchmark.
Y Early childhood professionals in all settings
receive the support, resources, and fair compensation
they need to provide high quality care.
______
The Chair. Thank you very much, Dr. Jones-Taylor.
We will turn to Ms. Perry.
STATEMENT OF SUSAN GALE PERRY, CHIEF DEPUTY SECRETARY, NORTH
CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, RALEIGH, NC
Ms. Perry. Good morning and thank you, Chair Murray,
Ranking Member Burr, and Members of the Committee for the
opportunity to testify today. This pandemic has shined a
spotlight on childcare's essential and at the same time blown
apart the already weak foundation that has kept it standing.
Yes, high quality, affordable childcare is the bedrock of our
economy. It allows parents to go to work, employers to hire and
retain workers, and children to receive nurturing care and
education. That is essential not just for their success, but
our Nation's success and well-being as well.
North Carolina's childcare programs are able to stay open
throughout the pandemic because we took early and aggressive
action to protect our school system. We provided guidance,
access to childcare, health consultance, and delivered personal
protective equipment. We established a hotline for essential
workers in need of care, covered parents' subsidy co-pays, and
set up an emergency childcare program for essential workers. We
stabilized childcare businesses with operational grants and
childcare subsidy and pre-K maintenance payments. And finally,
we incentivized the workforce to remain on the job by offering
bonus payments for staff, a mental health hotline, and a
vaccine outreach and appointment scheduling service.
More strategies are now underway thanks to significant
Federal investment. We are grateful for the continued
leadership and support of the President and Congress as a
result of these efforts. I am proud to report that as of April,
over 97 percent of childcare programs are open in our state and
we have not lost capacity yet. Still, there is no doubt the
pandemic has taken a significant toll on our childcare
businesses. Vacancy rates have been as high as 80 percent in
childcare. Providers report that they would not be able to
operate for more than two months without the state's financial
assistance. In the meantime, their staff are leaving for better
paying retail jobs. These challenges, while exacerbated by
COVID-19, are not new. For decades, parents, childcare
providers, and policymakers have recognized the fiscal
underpinning for our Nation's childcare system is flawed,
resulting in high costs for families, programs that operate on
the thinnest of margins, and poverty wages for childcare
workers, more than 50 percent of whom are women of color in our
state.
What can we do about it? I offer three things. First, we
must give families the flexible, affordable, quality options
they want and need. The reality is that work has been changing
for some time and the childcare system has not shifted. To meet
the changing needs, we can give families better options by
rebuilding the supply of family childcare, helping programs
adapt to the changing needs of working parents, promoting a
mixed delivery system for pre-K, and supporting families that
want to stay at home with their children. Second, we must fix
childcare financing and prioritize the early childhood
workforce while we do it. The childcare business model is
broken. It operates on a payment system that unrealistically
requires every state seat to be filled at all times and still
doesn't work because the cost to produce the service exceeds
most parents' ability to pay.
We can take steps to fix financing and build a strong
workforce at the same time by expanding childcare subsidies and
requiring states to pay at current market rates and
establishing a dedicated funding stream for supply side
investments tied to workforce education and compensation.
Funding the demand side alone won't stabilize and sustain
childcare. We need a dedicated funding stream that programs can
count on and in return are held accountable for quality
standards and better educated and compensated staff. Finally,
we need to invest in the people and technology that support our
childcare programs and workforce.
Building any kind of infrastructure takes many different
roles. Building a bridge doesn't just take the steel and
masonry contractors, it takes engineers, inspectors, and
others. Services like childcare resource and referral programs
who can connect families to care options, and health programs
with business management support, and state data systems and
technology solutions that hold our system accountable for
outcomes are critical components of a healthy childcare system.
The stakes are just too high not to seize this moment to
build stronger. Achievement gaps show up early as 18 months and
persist throughout school. And the science is irrefutable that
early experiences lay the foundation for all future learning.
It is time for our childcare policies and financing to catch up
to the brain science and mounting evidence of what we know
works for children, families, employers, and our Nation's
economy and well-being. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Perry follows:]
prepared statement of susan gale perry
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
______
[summary statement of susan gale perry]
The pandemic has shined a spotlight on child care's essential role
in our Nation's security and economic infrastructure. Child care
programs across the country kept their doors open and their teachers
stayed on the job even through the most treacherous moments of the
pandemic--when little was known about COVID or how to slow the spread,
personal protective equipment was scarce, and programs had no idea how
they would be able to keep the lights on and make payroll. Less
visible, but equally critical: children of essential workers benefited
from maintaining a daily routine and having access to safe and
nurturing environments with access to healthy foods and daily learning
activities.
North Carolina's child care system was able to continue to operate
throughout the pandemic because we took early and aggressive action to
protect and stabilize child care programs and incentivize the workforce
to stay on the job. Major strategies to stabilize child care for
essential workers and child care businesses include: (1) Ensuring
health and safety of children and staff by providing easy-to-use
guidance, access to child care health consultants statewide and
delivering personal protective equipment; (2) Providing access to
affordable child care for families by establishing a hotline for
essential workers in need of child care, covering parent co-pays for
families receiving child care subsidies, establishing an emergency
child care program for essential workers earning less than 300 percent
of Federal poverty and providing scholarships for school-age children
to attend out-of-school programs during school closures; (3) Supporting
child care programs so they could remain open with low attendance and
revenues by providing operational grants and paying child care subsidy
and NC Pre-K based on pre-pandemic enrollment; (4) Incentivizing the
workforce to remain on the job by offering bonus payments for staff, a
mental health hotline, and a vaccine outreach and appointment
scheduling service.
Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the pandemic has taken a
significant toll on child care programs and the workforce--further
weakening an already fragile system built on a market-based business
model that doesn't work because the cost to produce the service is more
than most parents can afford. We can use lessons learned during the
pandemic to build a strong foundation for the future of child care and
our Nation's economic prosperity and well-being. We must: (1) Give
families real choices by rebuilding the supply of family child care,
supporting all child care programs with business training and shared
services, promoting a mixed-delivery model for Pre-K, strengthening and
protecting quality and supporting families that stay home with their
children; (2) Prioritize the early childhood workforce by creating a
dedicated funding stream for improving workforce compensation and
benefits, funding the full cost of attendance in degree programs in
early childhood and incentivizing institutes of higher education to
establish career pathway programs for the early childhood workforce;
(3) Fix child care financing by expanding child care subsidies and
establishing a dedicated funding stream for market-side investments
tied to workforce education and compensation.
______
The Chair. Thank you, Ms. Perry.
We will turn to Ms. Reed.
STATEMENT OF DASJA REED, PARENT, NEW ORLEANS, LA
Ms. Reed. Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr, and the
Members of the Committee for inviting me to share my child's
story with you. My name is Dasja Reed. My two-year-old son
Jared and I live in New Orleans. I work a full-time job for the
city of New Orleans, and I am a full-time student pursuing a
degree in early childhood education, and I am a first-time mom.
I gave birth to Jared in the fall of 2018. As a city employee,
I had eight weeks off on maternity leave.
I learned quickly that healing from complications relating
to childbirth, looking for childcare, adjusting to life with
the baby, and doing it all alone was a lot to take on in just
eight weeks. Due to physical complications, I was forced to
take off an additional eight weeks from my job which was
unpaid. This created lots of stress and hardship. I am grateful
for the support system I had, but it was not enough. Being a
new parent is hard and there is so much to learn in what seems
to be such little time. Just a few months after delivering my
son, I started looking for childcare that would meet all our
needs in my area. I found that most childcare range from $500
to $1,000 a month.
In addition to unexpected expenses that go along with being
a new parent, childcare worker would consume more than 50
percent of my monthly earned income. The adjustment was
difficult, and I ended up having to settle for a childcare
program that I could barely afford rather than my first choice.
The childcare program that was--my first choice, it was a great
quality program. Most of the teachers had a college education.
The building was much cleaner. They had a great curriculum and
a good communication system with families. There was a teaching
assistant in the classroom, and overall, it was much safer.
Safety was very much on my mind when I was looking for
childcare. My first-choice program had a four to one ratio,
which made me feel more comfortable. But the program I had to
go with was a much higher ratio teacher to child. After paying
for childcare assistance, when Jared was six months old, I was
told that was not enough funding available and it took more
than two months for me to be approved.
Over those ten months, I paid full price for childcare and
struggled to keep my household afloat and pay other bills. With
childcare taking up such a large portion of my income during
that time, I also had to switch childcare a few times to find
one that worked for my family and I. Then the pandemic hit. I
had to leave my job at the city because my son's childcare
closed, and work had not closed yet. At first I had to use my
annual leave so that I could stay home with him. But then my
leave ran out and my job shut down. We were furloughed until my
department opened back up again, so I was out of work and not
getting paid.
Because I was not able to find a childcare for my son, I
applied for remote jobs and was even offered a new position at
the city last summer, but I had to turn it down because I had
nowhere to take my son. To make ends meet, I stopped using my
car to save on my car insurance, I held off on making payments
on my Federal student loans, and I did my best to remain
positive. I even started my own business, Precious Seeds,
selling personalized educational materials for children to earn
some income.
Last September, I found a new childcare for Jared. I was
scheduled to return to work during the phase three of New
Orleans reopening, so it was a great time. Jared went from
about three weeks--Jared went to the daycare for about three
weeks before I found out that I was not eligible for childcare
assistance. I had just started receiving--which I had just
started receiving before the pandemic because I was not back at
work yet. I was still trying to get my new business off the
ground, and while I had a full course load, it was not enough
credits to qualify for assistance.
I could not afford the $740 monthly childcare fee without
the childcare assistance, so Jared lost his spot at that
daycare. Eventually they let folks come back to work, but by
that time, Jared's childcare was permanently closed. This meant
I could not go back to work until I found the new childcare
provider. Finding childcare was even more challenging this time
around. I spent dozen of hours last year looking for childcare.
So many care providers were shut down permanently, and for the
ones that were open, it was hard to go there for tours or they
did not have as many seats available anymore. All the seats,
all the slots were filled. I just wanted to get back to work
and find a place that was a good fit for us. Just two months
ago, I finally found a new childcare and Jared loves it. It has
made such a difference in him and his development, and we are
in a much better place now. We have a great childcare provider
and childcare assistance.
Before the pandemic, I was at work and stressed out, not
feeling like my son was in a great place. Now, I am no longer
stressed, and I can focus on work and school, and have a peace
of mind. Being able to find an affordable quality care for
Jared has been such a challenge. This is a developmentally
important time for him. What happens in the first few years
sets the tone for the rest of a child's life and I realized
that even more having my son.
Having quality care and childcare system consistently over
the last two years would have made such a difference for us and
I know it would mean a lot to other families too. There are so
many families like mine across the country who are scrambling
to make ends meet. We are juggling jobs, schools, and care for
our children. We are keeping ourselves and our families
healthy. We are raising the next generation. And we are doing
our best. Now, we need Congress to do the same because the
choices we make now will shape our country's future.
I urge you to invest in the childcare system that Jared and
I, and countless families across the country need. Thank you
again for inviting me to share my story with you today. I look
forward to answering your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Reed follows:]
prepared statement of dasja reed
Thank you, Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr, and Members of the
Committee for inviting me to share my child care story with you. My
name is Dasja Reed. My two-year-old son Jarret and I live in New
Orleans. I work full-time for the city of New Orleans. I am a full-time
student pursuing a degree in early childhood education. And I am a
first-time mom.
I gave birth to Jarret in the fall of 2018. As a city employee, I
had 8 weeks off for maternity leave. I learned quickly that healing
from complications related to child birth, looking for child care,
adjusting to new life with a baby, and doing it all alone was a lot to
tackle in just 8 weeks. Due to physical complications, I was forced to
take off an additional 8 weeks from my job which was unpaid. This
created lots of stress and hardship. I am grateful for the support
systems I had, but it was not enough. Being a new parent is hard and
there is so much to learn in what seems to be such little time.
Just a few months after delivering my baby, I started looking for a
child care that would meet all our needs. In my area, I found that most
child care ranged from $500 to $1,000 a month. In addition to
unexpected expenses that go along with being a new parent, child care
would consume more than 50 percent of my monthly earned income. The
adjustment was difficult, and I ended up having to settle for a child
care program that I could still barely afford rather than my first
choice. The child care program that was my first choice was a great
quality program. Most of the teachers had a college education. The
building was cleaner. They had a great curriculum and good
communication with families. There was a teaching assistant in the
classroom. It was also much safer. Safety was very much on my mind when
I was looking for a child care. My first-choice program had a 4 to 1
ratio which made me feel more comfortable, but the program I had to go
with was 7 to 1. After applying for child care assistance when Jarret
was 6 months old, I was told that there was not enough funding
available, and it took more than 10 months for me to be approved. Over
those 10 months, I paid full price for child care and struggled to keep
my household afloat and pay other bills with child care expenses taking
up such a large portion of my income. During that time, I also had to
switch child cares a few times to find one that worked.
Then the pandemic hit. I had to leave my job with the city because
my son's child care closed, and work had not closed yet. At first, I
had to use my annual leave so that I could stay home with him. But then
my leave ran out and my job shut down. We were furloughed until my
department opened back up again. So, I was out of work and not getting
paid, because I was not able to find a child care for my son. I applied
for remote jobs and was even offered a new position with the city last
summer but had to turn it down because I had nowhere to take my son. To
make ends meet, I stopped using my car to save on insurance. I held off
on making payments on my Federal student loans. I did my best to remain
positive. I even started my own business, Precious Seeds, selling
personalized educational materials for children to earn some income.
Last September, I found a new child care for Jarret. I was
scheduled to return to work during phase 3 of New Orleans' reopening so
it was great timing. Jarret went for about 3 weeks before I found out
that I was not eligible for the child care assistance I had just
started receiving before the pandemic because I was not back at work
yet. I was still trying to get my new business off the ground and while
I had a full course load, it was not enough credit hours to qualify for
assistance. I could not afford the $740 monthly child care fee without
the child care assistance, so Jarret lost his spot.
Eventually they let folks come back to work, but by that time
Jarret's child care was permanently closed. This meant I could not go
back to work until I could find a new child care provider. Finding
child care was even more challenging this time around. I spent dozens
of hours last year looking for child care. So many child care providers
were shut down permanently. And for the ones that were open, it was
hard to go there for tours or they did not have as many seats available
anymore. All the slots were filled. I just wanted to get back to work
and find a place that was a good fit for us.
Just 2 months ago, I finally found a new child care and Jarret
loves it. I have seen such a difference in him and his development, and
we are in a much better place. We have a great child care provider and
child care assistance. Before the pandemic, I was at work and stressed
out; not feeling like my son was in a safe place. Now, I am not
stressed, I can focus on work and school, and have peace of mind.
Being able to find and afford quality care for Jarret has been such
a challenge. This is a developmentally important time for him. What
happens in the first few years sets the tone for the rest of a child's
life. I realize that even more after having my son. Having quality care
and child care assistance consistently over the last 2 years would have
made such a difference for us. And I know it would mean a lot to other
families, too. There are so many families like mine across the country.
We are scrambling to make ends meet. We are juggling jobs, school, and
care for our children. We are keeping ourselves and our families
healthy. We are raising the next generation. And we are doing our best.
Now we need Congress to do the same, because the choices we make now
will shape our country's future. I urge you to invest in the child care
system that Jarret and I, and countless families across the country,
need.
______
[summary statement of dasja reed]
My name is Dasja Reed. My two-year-old son Jarret and I live in New
Orleans. I work full-time for the city of New Orleans. I am a full-time
student pursuing a degree in early childhood education. And I am a
first-time mom.
I gave birth to Jarret in the fall of 2018. As a city employee, I
had 8 weeks off for maternity leave. Due to physical complications, I
was forced to take off an additional 8 weeks from my job which was
unpaid. This created lots of stress and hardship. Being a new parent is
hard and it is so much to learn in what seems to be such little time.
Just a few months after delivering my baby, I started looking for a
child care that would meet all our needs. In my area, I found that most
child care ranged from $500 to $1,000 a month. In addition to,
unexpected expenses that go along with being a new parent, child care
would consume more than 50 percent of my monthly earned income. The
adjustment was difficult, and I ended up having to settle for a child
care program that I could still barely afford rather than my first
choice.
After applying for child care assistance when Jarret was 6 months
old, I was told that there was not enough funding available, and it
took more than 10 months for me to be approved. Over those 10 months, I
paid full price for child care and struggled to keep my household
afloat and pay other bills with child care expenses taking up such a
large portion of my income.
Then the pandemic hit. I had to leave my job with the city because
my son's child care closed, and work had not closed yet. At first, I
had to use my annual leave so that I could stay home with him. But then
my leave ran out and my job shut down. We were furloughed until my
department opened back up again. So, I was out of work and not getting
paid, because I was not able to find a child care for my son. I applied
for remote jobs and was even offered a new position with the city last
summer but had to turn it down because I had nowhere to take my son.
Last September, I found a new child care for Jarret. I was
scheduled to return to work during phase 3 of New Orleans' reopening so
it was great timing. Jarret went for about 3 weeks before I found out
that I was not eligible for the child care assistance I had just
started receiving before the pandemic because I was not back at work
yet. Eventually they let folks come back to work, but by that time
Jarret's child care was permanently closed.
Just 2 months ago, I finally found a new child care and Jarret
loves it. I have seen such a difference in him and his development, and
we are in a much better place. We have a great child care provider and
child care assistance. Before the pandemic, I was at work and stressed
out; not feeling like my son was in a safe place. Now, I am not
stressed, I can focus on work and school, and have peace of mind.
Being able to find and afford quality care for Jarret has been such
a challenge. This is a developmentally important time for him. Having
quality care and child care assistance consistently over the last 2
years would have made such a difference in our lives. I urge you to
invest in the child care system that Jarret and I, and countless
families across the country, need.
______
The Chair. Thank you, Ms. Reed. And thank you so much for
sharing your personal story. I have heard it the same,
different sequences, but so, so much the same from so many
parents. And thank you for speaking out for yourself and for so
many of them today as well. Thank you.
Now we will turn to Ms. Khan.
STATEMENT OF KHADIJA LEWIS KHAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BEAUTIFUL
BEGINNINGS CHILD CARE CENTER, PROVIDENCE, RI
Ms. Khan. Thank you, Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr, and
distinguished Members of Congress for the opportunity to speak
before you today about this important topic. For the last 21
years, I have been the Executive Director of Beautiful
Beginnings Child Care Center in Providence, Rhode Island.
Our mission is to ensure that each child who attends our
program receives a strong educational and social emotional
foundation in their early years to prepare them for success in
life and school. We are a four-star quality rated program
through Bright Stars, which means we have committed to offering
a safe environment that provides a high level of quality with
educated and qualified staff. We have two sites between which
infant, toddler, preschool, and state Pre-K classrooms are
offered. We are an early head start childcare partnership site,
and we are licensed for 158 children.
Historically, 70 percent of the children across all of our
programs receive some form of payment assistance for their care
via the Department of Human Services or through state Pre-K.
Prior to the pandemic, our staff of 39 primarily consisted of
women of color. We always had a long waiting list which spoke
to the need for access to high quality care. Yet I struggled
like so many of my fellow childcare programs with the
challenges of a system in which neither the parent fees nor
subsidies cover the true cost of care in a way that allowed me
to provide wages and benefits that reflected my staff's
incredible and skillful work. Many of my staff members rely on
programs such as SNAP benefits, rental and heating assistance
programs to make ends meet.
Prior to the pandemic, we were feeling the weight of
decades of operating on shoestring budgets as part of an
underfunded and under-resourced system. In 2008, Rhode Island
reduced income eligibility for childcare, and we still have not
restored it. Using the Federal affordability guideline of 7
percent of a family's income, a Rhode Island family would have
to earn $150,000 a year to be able to affordably pay for one
three-year-old in a typical childcare center.
It was already a difficult situation and then the pandemic
began, causing decreased revenue and increased costs for
cleaning supplies, PPE, and staffing. We closed at the
beginning of the pandemic for several weeks. Thanks to Care's
funding, the Rhode Island Department of Human Service was able
to pay for enrollment rather than attendance during that time.
We would have never survived the closure period without it. We
have slowly reopened but are still not at full capacity. COVID
has layered additional challenges onto teachers and staff who
are already overburdened, underpaid, mentally and physically
drained, and challenged by doing a job where they are
considered essential yet so often treated as disposable.
Childcare teachers are among the lowest paid workers in the
Nation.
In Rhode Island, the average wage for a childcare teacher
is $12.00 an hour and the minimum wage is $11.50. Childcare
educators' day to day interactions influence children's
developing brain architecture. They are working with families
through trauma, learning loss, and more. Disparities in
development begin to emerge in infancy and widen over time
without consistent, nurturing care that can be provided by
effective, competent and prepared educators. As a sector,
childcare is facing the most significant staffing challenges we
have had as educators leave the field for higher paying jobs,
not only leaving the field, but having to make the decision of
whether to enter the field in the first place, when some high
school graduates even earn more than them in entry level
positions in different industries.
It makes no short term or long-term sense for our Nation or
states to put so little money into childcare that educators are
paid such low wages and offered minimal benefits. Here are four
things that I think would help make a difference. One, we need
funding that covers the cost of care, which includes fair
compensation for the essential work of our early childhood
educators. Effective and qualified educators, including those
working with babies, deserve pay parity with elementary school
teachers. Two, it is important for more families to be able to
get help--to get help and choose high quality childcare options
that provide stability for them, their children, and for
programs. Three, we must recognize that childcare and early
learning cannot be separated.
Childcare programs in centers and homes, just like schools,
provide support for working families and provide support for
children's positive growth and development. Four, I hope you
will continue to include early childhood educators and program
directors and being part of the solution, investing in ways
that will work for those of us on the ground. Childcare is a
lifeline to our families, and early childhood educators are
essential.
I urge you to support us by building on the relief that has
allowed us to keep going and providing substantial and
sustained investments to rebuild and strengthen childcare
programs like mine. On behalf of all of us, I thank you for
listening to my testimony, and look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Khan follows:]
prepared statement of khadija lewis khan
Thank you, Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr, and distinguished
Members of the Committee for the opportunity to speak before you about
this topic that is close to my heart: the importance of strengthening
America's child care sector so we can support America's children,
workers, and families.
For the last 21 years I have been the executive director of
Beautiful Beginnings Child Care Center in Providence, RI. Our mission
is to ensure that each child who attends our program receives a strong
educational and social-emotional foundation in their early years to
prepare them for success in school and in life. We are a four-star
quality rated program through Bright Stars, our state's quality rating
and improvement system, which means we have committed to offering a
safe environment that provides a high level of quality, with educated
and qualified staff. I am happy to share that as a result of this work,
we have become a trusted part of our community since we first opened
our doors in 1999. Because of this work, I also have the pleasure of
serving on the steering committee of RIght from the Start and as Board
President for Rhode Island Association for the Education of Young
Children.
At our main site, Beautiful Beginnings offers infant, toddler,
preschool and state Pre-K classrooms and is licensed for 140 children.
We also operate one stand-alone Pre-K class at our local community
college. Beautiful Beginnings is an Early Head Start-Child Care
Partnership site and historically, 70 percent of the children in our
program receive some form of payment assistance for their care, either
through subsidies via our Department of Human Services or through Rhode
Island State Pre-K.
Prior to the pandemic, I had a staff of 39 women--primarily women
from communities of color who reflect the diversity of our child
population. Our 12 classrooms were at capacity, and we always had a
long waiting list, which spoke to the need of families in our community
for access to high-quality child care. Yet even with a program that was
constantly in-demand, I struggled, like so many of my fellow child care
programs, with the challenges of a system in which neither parent fees
nor subsidies covered the cost of the care in a way that allowed me to
provide wages and benefits that reflected my staff's incredible,
skillful work. In Rhode Island, as in states across the Nation, the
regular rates for the Child Care Assistance Program are too low to
enable low-income families to have equal access to the market that
middle income families have access to, and too low to do anything but
keep teacher wages suppressed.
Many of my staff members rely on programs such as SNAP benefits,
rental and heating assistance programs to make ends meet. To be honest,
it was not out of the ordinary for me to hear from one of my longtime
staff members that their child, who recently graduated from high
school, was making as much as they were at an entry-level job in any
other industry.
Even prior to the pandemic, we were feeling the weight of decades
of operating on shoestring budgets as part of an underfunded and under
resourced system. For example, back during the great recession in 2008,
Rhode Island cut eligibility for child care and we have still not
restored this access even though we know that almost every family in
the state needs help paying for child care. Using the Federal
affordability guideline of 7 percent of family income, a Rhode Island
family would have to earn $150,000/year to be able to affordably pay
for one three-year-old in a typical child care center--even one that
only pays their teachers $12/hour (and our minimum wage is $11.50/
hour).
It was already a difficult situation; and then, COVID hit. You all
know the crisis we have faced as a result and NAEYC's surveys of the
field have demonstrated this: decreased revenue and increased costs for
cleaning supplies, PPE and staffing. At Beautiful Beginnings, in
compliance with our Governor's public health emergency directive, we
closed from March through June 2020. Thanks to CARES funding, Rhode
Island Department of Human Services was able to pay for enrollment
rather than attendance for those months. We would never have survived
the closure period without it. We eventually reopened with 4 of our 12
classrooms, and have slowly returned to having 11 open classrooms. With
the assistance of relief funding, we were able to provide enhanced
pandemic wages for 3 months to support staff members who were uneasy
about returning with all of the unknowns of the pandemic. It also
allowed us to dedicate a staff member exclusively to cleaning. An
example of our additional cleaning is that now our playground spaces
have to be sanitized 22 times daily between each group of children
since our safety precautions mean separating small groups of children
and keeping them in pods.
Being an early childhood educator had its challenges before the
pandemic, but COVID has layered additional challenges onto teachers and
staff, who are overburdened, underpaid, mentally and physically
drained, and challenged daily by doing a job where they are considered
essential, yet so often treated as disposable. As a sector, child care
is facing the most significant staffing challenge we've ever had, as
educators leave the field to get higher paying jobs not just in the
public schools, but in retail, warehouse distribution centers, and fast
food. Child care teachers are among the lowest paid workers in the
Nation. In Rhode Island the average wage for a child care teacher is
$12.01/hour and the minimum wage is $11.50/hour. Because our country
hasn't sufficiently funded necessary supports and fair compensation,
our programs, families, and children feel the impact of current and
future educators who have to make decisions to leave the field--or not
to enter it at all. Directors are sharing stories of staffing
nightmares every day, and I can tell you that our last classroom has
not yet opened because I have been unable to hire a qualified early
childhood educator to lead the classroom. This job is so much more than
babysitting, so much more than simply keeping children safe. It
requires supporting the children and families in our program, through
trauma, learning loss, and more. Child care educators are responsible
for day-to-day interactions that influence the developing brain
architecture of children. Disparities in development begin to emerge in
infancy and widen over time without consistent, nurturing care and
high-quality learning opportunities that can be provided by effective,
competent, prepared, and compensated educators.
Child care relief funding is keeping many programs from going over
the cliff, but we are still teetering on the edge. We don't want to go
back to the crises and challenges of the past--we want to be part of
the effort to build a child care system that will work for our
children, our families, our staff, and the businesses in our community
that rely on us. It makes no short or long term sense for our Nation
and our states to put so little money into child care that educators
are paid such low wages and offered minimal benefits. Here are four
things that I think would make all the difference in the world:
(1) We need funding that covers the cost of care, which
includes fair compensation for the skilled, valuable, and
essential work of our early childhood educators. Effective and
qualified educators, including those who work with babies,
deserve pay parity with elementary school teachers,
(2) It is important for more families to be able to choose and
get help paying for high quality child care options that
provide stability for them, for their children, and for us,
(3) We must recognize that child care and early learning cannot
be separated. I see every day how child care programs in
centers and homes--just like schools--provide support for
working families AND provide support for children's positive
growth and development.
(4) Finally, I am so pleased to be here today, and I hope you
will continue to ask early childhood educators and program
directors to be part of the solution so that we can work with
you, to create investments in ways that will work for those of
us on the ground.
Child care is a lifeline to our families and early childhood
educators are essential. I urge you to support us by building on relief
that has allowed us to keep going, and providing substantial and
sustained investments to rebuild and strengthen child care programs
like mine. On behalf of all of us, I thank you for listening to my
story, and look forward to your questions.
______
The Chair. Thank you very much, Ms. Khan. Thank you to all
of our witnesses today for really excellent testimony. We will
now begin a round of five-minute questions. And I ask all of
our colleagues again to keep track of the clock and stay within
those five minutes. Research shows that early childhood, where
90 percent of brain growth happens by age five, is a critical
period of brain development that really lays the foundation for
future learning.
As a former early educator myself, I know how important it
is to make sure childcare is high quality to support healthy
child development. Children need responsive teacher child
interactions, and they need an engaging physical environment
that supports exploration. So, Dr. Jones-Taylor, let me start
with you and ask for you to talk with us about why it is
important to make sure childcare is high quality to support
children's development.
Dr. Jones-Taylor. Thank you for your question. You are
absolutely right. We know that in the first three years of
life, for young children, one million new neural connections
are formed. All of the--laying the foundation for all
development and success you want to see in life, right. That
doesn't happen on its own. It happens in the context of
environments. It happens in the context of healthy
relationships with parents. And when parents have to go to
work, which we know 62 percent of all women with children aged
three and under are in the workforce, we need to make sure that
the providers who are entrusted with young children have the
support that they need. There are enough of them to be able to
do that, building that strong foundation, a strong attachment
that happens between the caregiver and a young child. And that
costs--that is labor intensive, right.
We don't want to have more than one adult to four children,
babies in particular. We know that is really the bare minimum,
if you will, in terms of making sure that children stay safe,
and those enriching experiences are available, that they are
possible with those ratios. It is also important to think about
the content and the experience of young children and making
sure that they have these enriching, engaging opportunities to
explore the world and play. And so, you want to have safe
environments for them to do that. And that also costs money.
But what we have done instead is assume that we can do this
on the cheap and we have really shortchanged our children and
our providers. And we are doing this in a way where parents are
paying far more than they can, as I said earlier, and providers
are getting paid to less. And this is something that we have to
decide as a society. Are we willing to accept this any longer?
We subsidize many things in this country. We subsidize
agriculture because we value it.
We subsidize even sports, profitable sports teams. But we
don't subsidize to the appropriate levels what we need in terms
of childcare so that children aren't shortchanged, parents
aren't shortchanged, providers aren't shortchanged, and the
economy isn't shortchanged. And so, we have an opportunity here
to make our values match with the subsidies, with the supports
that we are providing for children. And we cannot do this on
the cheap and we don't want to. It would be to our future
detriment if we were to do that.
The Chair. I couldn't disagree with any of that. Really
appreciate all that you just said. I think it is really
important. And Ms. Reed, as a parent, what do you look for in a
childcare program in terms of quality and safety?
Ms. Reed. Thank you for the question. And the No. 1 thing
that I always look for is the ratio--the ratio to the teacher.
How many kids are in the classroom? I think that is so
important because the teachers have a more one on one time with
the children and, how many children are in the classroom. And
if they have seven in there, right, you can't get those little
things that a child may need, those little things that, you
have to pay attention to, right.
I just believe that the ratio is so important when it comes
to safety, and how many kids are in the classroom, how many
teachers are in the classroom with the children, and then, of
course, just a clean environment, what the children have in a
safe environment. You know, do they have things around the room
that they can potentially put in their mouth that they can
possibly choke on. Different things of that nature.
Again, the quality for me is definitely--the quality and
safety for me is definitely the ratio and how many children are
in the classroom, if they have a teacher's assistant in the
classroom, and again, just a clean environment for the
children.
The Chair. Yes, thank you. And we know early childhood
educators do such critical work for healthy child development
and support working families, keeping our economy going.
Several of you mentioned the statistics about the low pay. And
even before the pandemic hit, early childhood field really
struggled to attract and retain high quality teachers. Ms.
Khan, low wages for your early childhood workforce. How has
that affected teachers in your program?
Ms. Khan. Thank you for the question. So, in our program,
we spend about 70 percent of our budget on wages and still the
wages are not high enough to compensate them for the job that
they really do. And it is not only wages, it is also benefits.
Being able to have a retirement plan for teachers that stay in
the field for many years, affordable health care through their
employer has been something that we have struggled with.
That means that our highly educated teachers are more
likely to not see this as a career to stay in. It is more a job
for the moment because they can't sacrifice their goals in life
in order to stay in a job that they know is important and they
love, because outside of the center they have their own goals
of home ownership or--yes, and so it has been difficult.
The Chair. It is hard to keep experienced childcare people
in the field because they move on. So, I appreciate that so
much. And I will turn it over to Senator Burr.
Senator Burr. Thank you, Madam Chair. And let me say to all
of you, welcome again. You might think why would the old guy at
the dais be very concerned with childcare? Let me assure you, I
am probably more concerned with who takes care of my
grandchildren than I ever was and who took care of my children.
So, I think as we grow older, we get more engaged and concerned
with not only childcare, but education. So, I am going to turn
to Ms. Perry and Ms. Khan just very quickly. You represent
states. Have childcare--has a childcare workforce in your state
had an opportunity to be vaccinated?
Ms. Perry.
Ms. Perry. Thank you, Senator Burr, for that question, and
the answer is yes, absolutely. Childcare providers and teachers
were among the first who were eligible for vaccines. And we did
a significant amount to do outreach to our childcare workforce
and actually connect them directly with vaccine appointments
and scheduling. Our childcare resource and referral programs
really helped us a lot. And we have worked very hard to get
teachers vaccinated.
Senator Burr. Ms. Khan.
Ms. Khan. In Rhode Island, our Governor also prioritized
vaccinating teachers and that included early educators and
childcare centers. So, all of our teachers have had the
opportunity to get vaccinated. We are very thankful for that.
Senator Burr. Am I right to make the assumption neither one
of those states mandates that childcare workers be vaccinated?
Ms. Perry. Thank you, Senator. That is correct. North
Carolina does not mandate vaccinations.
Senator Burr. Ms. Khan.
Ms. Khan. Rhode Island also does not.
Senator Burr. I just raised this issue, and I am not
suggesting that it should be, but when they leave childcare and
they go to K through 12, it strikes me that K through 12
requires students to be vaccinated before they go to school,
but we are not having a debate on whether we require teachers
to be vaccinated before they teach those students. And I think
as we talk about the decision that parents make in childcare,
that doesn't stop at pre-K. They still prefer to have some
choices in education. They are concerned about their children's
education.
We are going through a period right now trying to decide
what people don't take vaccines, how do they show up for the
first and not the second? And to some degree, they either lack
the confidence or they see two different systems. And I think
when we get the K through 12, we all of sudden see a different
system where we mandate for kids, but we don't mandate for
teachers. And I think parents are going to wonder about that.
I say that for you, they represent states. You can go back
and raise that with your Governor, Ms. Perry. I already have.
So, you will just be reinforcing what I did. Ms. Perry, let me
just ask, what was your thought process in North Carolina as to
why licensed childcare needed to remain open when many called
for it to close?
Ms. Perry. Thank you for that question, Senator Burr. It is
really quite simple, because we had essential workers who
needed to go to work and be on the job and they needed a safe,
affordable, quality place for their children while they were
doing that. North Carolina, like all states, needed grocery
store workers and mail delivery folks and our health care
workers first and foremost to be on the job. And they needed
quality childcare for their children.
We did make the decision early to keep childcare open and
working very hard to make sure we had all the health and safety
protocols in place to keep children and staff and families as
safe as possible and slow the spread of COVID-19.
Senator Burr. Thank you, Ms. Jones-Taylor, it is great to
see you again. It has been too long. Why is parent choice so
important for young children?
Dr. Jones-Taylor. Thank you for that question. As you said
parents know their children best. We all know our children
better than anyone else. And we should have the ability to
think of where our children will be best suited in terms of
where they will feel comfortable in terms of language.
If you are a bilingual family, having somebody who speaks
your language may be really important to you. And so, we don't
want to limit choice. And it is really important along those
lines to make sure we have a mixed delivery system. That parent
who decides that they would like their child to go to a public
preschool program, public school, they have an option. And a
parent who wants to send their child to a family, childcare
neighbor or provider down the street, business owner down the
street, that they also have that option.
What we cannot skip on is quality. That wherever a parent
decides to send their child, even if it is to their family
member with whom they trust their child, that parent can be
assured that the provider has the skills, has a safe
environment, and has the knowledge and passion to make sure
that child is getting everything they need to support their
healthy development.
Senator Burr. Thank you for that. My time has run out, but
I do want to say to Ms. Reed, congratulations for having at
least solved the immediate crisis, which is to provide
childcare and one--and two, to be back at work. But I also want
to commend you for in the midst of everything you were dealing
with, you became an entrepreneur. And I wish you great success
in whatever business you might have started up or might startup
in the future. Thank you for being with us. Thank you, Madam
Chair.
The Chair. Thank you.
We will turn to Senator Casey.
Senator Casey. Chair Murray, thank you very much for having
this hearing, both you and the Ranking Member. And I want to
thank our witnesses for bringing not only their experience,
their insight, but also their passion to these issues, and
finally bringing their own personal stories. And Senator Burr
just made reference to and I think we all were thinking when
Ms. Reed was testifying, how deeply personal and real this is
for so many Americans. This isn't some theoretical issue. This
is real life. And we are grateful you are willing to bring your
perspectives here.
I will try to get to a question both for Dr. Jones-Taylor
and Ms. Perry if I have enough time. But I wanted to start with
some basic--and it is not just an assumption, it is a provable
assertion, I believe, based upon the data we have seen over a
generation now that when children learn more, they earn more.
That connection between learning and earn, it is about as
strong as any connection and public policy research. So, it is
critical that childcare be of such a quality where children get
that not just early care, but also early learning.
Another connection I think that we haven't talked about
enough is the connection between education and health care and
the welfare of a child. And we know that in the pandemic when
schools were closed, that was what was going down. We hoped it
would be going in the other direction. Child abuse and neglect,
for example, and neglect reporting was dropping while housing,
the affordable housing and food insecurity were rising. So,
both going in the wrong direction.
This highlights the importance of ensuring that Federal
policy addresses the needs of the whole child, including
whether it is economic security, health, education, safety,
nutrition, but also that we adopt a comprehensive approach to
our recovery.
Dr. Jones-Taylor, I wanted to ask you about two words,
markers and barriers, both of which you are familiar with. How
would you describe the markers of high quality, early childhood
program, No. 1? And No. 2, what are some of the barriers to
meeting that very high quality, but at scale, that we need
across the nation?
Dr. Jones-Taylor. Thank you for your question. So, we have
heard some of them today, right. We know that staff ratios,
child staff ratios are critical. We want to make sure that they
are--that is appropriate, that the providers have the
competencies to deliver on all of the brain science, all
research, Susan spoke about that, which contributes to the
healthy development of young children.
We want to make sure that they have the training and
support and resources, and if they choose to, opportunities to
go to higher education and get a degree. We also want to make
sure that the environment is safe and healthy. And you all did
such great work with the reauthorization of CCDBG too back in
2014 to make sure that we have raised those standards. We also
know, however, that the barriers are also there.
Making sure that states can afford things like background
checks is something we have talked about before. That they have
the support, they have the folks on the ground, as Susan said,
to do the inspections and make sure that there is quality, that
they are safe and stimulating environments for young children.
Affordability, though, is the place I really want to land,
which we have heard here today.
We know childcare is out of reach for--high quality
childcare is out of reach for far too many children. So cost is
a barrier. The workforce is a barrier. We heard Ms. Khan talk
about the fact that people are leaving not because they don't
believe in this work, but because they cannot afford to stay.
Senator Casey. Doctor, thanks very much, and I hope that we
made some good progress in the rescue plans. I think we did on
helping families pay for childcare with the childcare and
dependent tax credit expansion, as well as the direct support
tens of billions for providers. Last question for Ms. Perry.
Center for American Progress tells us that more than 1.1
million children under the age of six receive services for a
disability.
Unfortunately, the same report finds that parents of
children with disabilities face greater challenges in accessing
care and estimate that in all but six states, no more than 2
percent, 2 percent of children who receive a childcare subsidy
have a disability. How can we ensure that inclusive and
enriching care is accessible and affordable for all families,
including those who have a child with a disability?
Ms. Perry. Thank you, sir, so much for that question, and I
think you raise a very important point that often goes on
untalked about, which is simply that our early intervention
system has also been very under-resourced for many years. We
know that young children do best in integrated settings with
their typically developing peers.
That means you need really significant resources to make
sure that in those classrooms there is the kind of support,
whether it is speech therapy or other kinds of support that
need to happen in the classroom in an integrated setting. So,
we need to do a lot more to build our early intervention
workforce and the financial resources that are supporting it.
You are absolutely right, sir.
Senator Casey. Thanks very much. Thanks, Chair Murray.
The Chair. Thank you.
We will turn to Senator Collins.
Senator Collins. Thank you, Madam Chair. During the past
years, in the midst of the pandemic, the YMCA has really
stepped up to the plate. They have provided additional
childcare for essential workers. They extended their hours.
They created academies for children to do their remote
learning, ad wise. And they have been terrific. They have
provided 17,000 children with childcare during the pandemic,
which is truly extraordinary. But most of those YMCAs are
located in the Central, Eastern and Southern parts of the State
of Maine.
I would--my question is going to be for Secretary Perry and
Dr. Jones-Taylor. And that is last October, the Bipartisan
Policy Center identified the supply and potential demand for
childcare across the entire State of Maine. And what they found
is in the Northern region, the area that I just mentioned, has
very few, if any. They found that approximately 15 percent of
the children under age five with parents in the workforce
currently lack access to childcare. And by contrast, Maine's
urban areas had a childcare gap of just 4 percent.
In one of Maine's most rural communities, counties rather,
nearly 40 percent of young children lack access to childcare.
So, this is a major problem that has long concerned me, and I
wondered if you could talk about, aside from funding
constraints, what are the major barriers to childcare access in
rural communities? And what strategies have you found to be
effective for eliminating those barriers? Why don't we start
with Dr. Jones-Taylor and then Secretary Perry?
Dr. Jones-Taylor. Thank you, Senator Collins. Yes,
nationally, we know that about 8 percent of infants and
toddlers live in rural communities, but the State of Babies
yearbook, which ZERO TO THREE just released, shows that in
Maine, 38 percent of babies, infants and toddlers live in rural
communities. We need to make sure that we have a system that
supports all children wherever they are. And so, a few things.
One, we need to make sure that parents have choice and
thinking about family childcare as a integral part of our--the
fabric of our childcare system, especially in rural
communities, I think is really important. We know that is very
strong, very strong evidence, and not just family childcare,
but having staffed family childcare networks, evidence-based
family childcare networks like what we have in Connecticut
called All Our Kin, where you get the support, you get the
training, you have all of that support so that providers are
equipped with the information they need. So that is one that I
would really encourage you in calls with rural populations to
consider.
Senator Collins. Thank you. Doctor, or Secretary Perry.
Ms. Perry. Thank you, Senator. I would just build on what
Dr. Jones-Taylor just said, and say, we know--North Carolina is
largely rural. We, though, have been a very center-based state,
focused heavily on center-based care. And I think what we need
to do and what we see nationally is a very steep decline in the
number of family childcare providers. And that is certainly
true for North Carolina. And so, I think we do need to rebuild
the supply of family childcare, because in rural communities,
of course, families are spread out.
There aren't as many of them. You are not going to get them
all together in one place to be in a center-based setting. So
those family childcare homes are going to be really critical.
But those family childcare homes need a lot of support. They
need shared services and business support, so they can focus
their energy on being with the kids every day and doing the
work that they know best.
They need opportunities to network with each other and
learn from each other and have remotely, accessible,
professional development that they don't have to travel far
for. So, I think there is a lot that we can do to rebuild
family childcare, and we need to spend time doing that if we
want to address some of the rural childcare challenges.
Senator Collins. Thank you very much. Thank you all for
being here with us.
The Chair. Thank you.
We will turn to Senator Baldwin.
Senator Baldwin. Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to
discuss another area where access to childcare is critically
important, and that is in higher education. There are estimates
that there are about 14 million student parents across the
country, many of whom struggle to find the childcare they need
to be able to participate in their academic programs.
While there is a Department of Education program called
Child Care Access, means parents in schools otherwise known as
C-Campus, that program helps colleges and universities provide
childcare services for low-income student parents. But it only
assists a fraction of student parents, probably around 11,000,
as estimated by the Institute for Women's Policy Research, and
then again, out of 14 million estimated student parents who are
needing childcare.
Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened this
issue because many universities and colleges temporarily or
permanently closed their university based childcare programs.
So, Dr. Jones-Taylor, what steps do you think that we ought to
be contemplating in the Congress to tackle this issue of
assisting student parents and helping to address their
childcare needs while they are pursuing higher education?
Dr. Jones-Taylor. Thank you for that question. We know that
this is a common thing. I remember when I was doing my research
years ago, I spoke with a parent who decided she had an
opportunity to go to community college or get a job working at
McDonald's, and she--well, she had a young child and she chose
McDonald's because she could not get the subsidy to support her
while she was getting her higher education, but she could while
she was working at a low wage job.
Making sure that families who are working and going to
school or just going to school--just right, that is a lot while
you are raising a child--that they have access to the subsidy
is absolutely critical. And then, making sure that universities
recognize that statistic you just offered, that so many of our
parents--of our students are student parents and making sure
that we have not only childcare programs that are available to
them, but that we have offerings that support their needs and
that they can afford to do it. So, subsidies a really big
component of that and making sure that states take advantage of
that is important.
Senator Baldwin. I wanted to add on to that, because this
Department of Education program and helping student parents
pursue their education and meet their childcare needs is a sort
of institution based childcare setting. During the COVID-19
pandemic, as various workplaces have had to help their
essential workers figure out childcare, have we seen any
increase in workplace based childcare offerings or have we not
seen any trends during this pandemic? And I would ask Secretary
Perry as well as Dr. Jones-Taylor that question.
Ms. Perry. Thank you for that question, Senator. I will
jump in and start and say, no, we have not seen trends that
would suggest more employer-based childcare. And I will say I
think there is a question on the table about whether or not,
for the long run, that is going to be a primary strategy, given
that we know many workplaces are adapting the way they are
approaching their workers and whether there are workers that
need to be onsite every day full time and all day.
I think as we are thinking about strategies to Dr. Jones-
Taylor's point, we do need to think about more parent choice
options that allow them maybe to have care that is closer to
their home than to their work. So, we have not seen that trend,
and I think workplace childcare as general, pre-pandemic was
also on the decline for precisely this kind of reason.
Also, when you have work-based childcare, it does mean that
you have a limited number of spaces available for your
employees and largely only used by large employers who then
have other employees who can't access it.
Senator Baldwin. Thank you. Dr. Jones-Taylor.
Dr. Jones-Taylor. Yes, thank you. And I would just say one
thing that we have seen is that employer-based childcare is
seen as a nice incentive to attract higher income, higher wage
earners. But we need to think about the building childcare
centers or making sure there is availability for parents to
choose high quality childcare for our low wage employers.
We are thinking about folks in high tech industries that
you can think of a few maybe in Washington State that are
incentivizing their workforce to come in and have these
incredible childcare settings onsite or close by, but the
actual people who are working in the factories, who are
fulfilling orders, they don't have access to that. It is a--we
need to right size that system. And so, I think that is
something we should be thinking about again when it comes to
choice.
Senator Baldwin. Thank you.
The Chair. Thank you very much.
We will turn to Senator Cassidy.
Senator Cassidy. Thank you, Madam Chair and Mr. Ranking
Member, for having this hearing. And thank you to all the
witnesses and a big shout out to Ms. Reed. Ms. Reed, I am a
Senator from Louisiana, Bill Cassidy, and I am so proud to have
you here. I can imagine when your son looks at the YouTube
video of yourself, of you when he is 20 years old. Of course,
he will already be proud of you, but he will be even prouder,
if that is possible, the son for his mom, but thank you.
Ms. Reed, I was aware of a childcare in Jefferson Parish,
and for those not familiar with Jefferson Parish is a suburb of
New Orleans, which had spaces open, but which the parents
didn't want to bring their child in and because of fear over
the pandemic. Now, did the city of New Orleans allow you to
find a day care center out of Orleans Parish because there was
capacity, but it may be too far out for you. I am just asking.
I am totally just trying to understand.
Ms. Reed. Yes, they do. I wasn't aware of one in Jefferson
Parish. So, I am located in New Orleans East and that is
typically where I search for a care provider, kind of in the
perimeters of my job and home. So, I wasn't aware of one in
Jefferson Parish, but just looking at the ones from in New
Orleans East and Gentilly area, those were the primary areas
that I focused on.
Senator Cassidy. Now, thank you for that. And of course, it
would have really put you out of sorts if unable to get
childcare, if the daycare center had been completely closed,
not just affordable, not just even spots open, but completely
closed. Is that a fair statement?
Ms. Reed. Yes, sir.
Senator Cassidy. Yes. You know, one of my concerns about
some of the proposals before us is that ultimately they would
move these childcare centers into public schools. What we have
seen is because of incredible influence by teachers unions,
public schools are closed for in-person instruction, even
though the Centers for Disease Control said that it was safe to
go back to in-person instruction. What impact that would have
upon a working mom, as it did a lot of working moms couldn't
work because teacher unions were effectively forcing the
shutdown of public-school systems.
That is very concerning. Ms. Perry, it is my understanding
that state regulations have an incredible impact upon
increasing the cost of daycare without any sort of discernible
improvement in outcomes. Staffing ratios, for example, of
overly restrictive can lead to much higher cost. Again, without
discernible increase in an outcome. Again, some of the
proposals before us would have the Federal Government heavily
involved in regulating what happens on the state level. I don't
ever see a place where the Government's involvement, the
Federal Government's involvement actually decreases cost.
Would you have concerns about North Carolina having their
staffing ratio dictated by somebody in Washington, DC?
Ms. Perry. Thank you for that question, Senator. You know,
I would say this, that regulations do need to focus on what
matters most for children, and that is the quality of the
people doing the care for the children every day, their
capacity to deal with the challenges of managing a classroom of
one-year olds who tend to bite each other and keeping them
safe, managing through how you talk to 12 or 15 three-year-olds
and get them ready for reading success. You can't skip steps
in.
Learning is sequential. So, there is a lot of things that
have to be happening and those early years. So, I would say
regulations are important to keep kids healthy and safe. And
need to be focused on the things that matter most. I think
there is always opportunities to revisit regulations and think
about are we really focusing on the things that matter most.
But I think they are important, and I think they keep children
healthy, safe, and learning, which is what we want our children
to be doing.
Senator Cassidy. I am sorry I cut myself off, I am not sure
if I am--can you still hear me?
The Chair. We can hear you now.
Senator Cassidy. Thank you. And how much time do I have?
The Chair. You had 20 seconds, but we will let you go.
Senator Cassidy. Oh, that is Okay. I will yield back. I am
pressing buttons on my phone. I don't have any clue what is
going on, so I better yield back----
The Chair. In a year, he hasn't learned. He needs to go
back to preschool.
[Laugher.].
The Chair. Thank you, Senator Cassidy.
I will turn to Senator Kaine.
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Chair Murray. And to the
witnesses, what a treat to be with you. And in particular, I
want to say to Ms. Reed and Ms. Khan, your stories about the
challenge of the last year, Ms. Reed working, having a child,
going to school, trying to afford good childcare in a pandemic,
they really are the same kinds of things I am hearing all
across the Commonwealth. And I am so glad you are a witness
today and Ms. Khan. Thank you for your being on the front line
and running a childcare program at one of the most challenging
times in the history of these programs in our country. I am a
proud dad of an early childhood educator, and I know very much
it is not done for money. It is not done for fame or glory. It
is done out of love for children.
I know that is something that links all of you. There is a
report recently by Third Way that indicates that inadequate
childcare is the third most common reason now cited for people
not yet able to go back to work this deep into the pandemic.
Furloughs or closed businesses are the two top reasons. But not
being able to find the right childcare at this time is a
significant reason. And as I traveled around Virginia during
the recess week we had around Easter, again and again and
again, what employers were saying to me is, as they are
starting to want to reopen, they are finding in their own
employees the absence of affordable childcare in their
communities is a huge obstacle.
This notion that childcare is just about the child or just
about the parent is wrong. It is really required to get the
economy up and running, too, which means that there is a whole
lot of reasons we should take this seriously. I guess I really
have one concern and then a big picture question that I would
love you to address if you want to. The concern I have is this,
it just seems like we say, and I think we believe that the most
important people to us are our kids and our parents, and yet
the way we compensate folks who take care of our kids and the
way we compensate so often people who take care of our parents
would suggest that we are sort of lying when we say that, or at
least the compensation levels don't match what we feel in our
hearts about the need for high quality care. So often jobs
caring for the youngest kids and jobs caring for the elderly,
they are not compensated in a good way.
That leads to turnover people who want to be in the
profession to decide that they can't. And then that leads to
care that isn't of a level that it should be. So, I think it is
a funding issue. It is a salary issue, but it is probably kind
of a cultural issue, even bigger than whatever Congressional
policy would be. Do we really mean it when we say that our kids
are important to us and that our parents and grandparents are
important to us? And if we really mean it, then people could
make careers in these fields, living wages and careers with
benefits, and we are not yet there.
We have got a lot of work to do. And I am glad to be on a
Committee that is trying to figure out how to do it, so here is
a big idea that I have that I am just going to throw out to
you. And I love to hear what any of you say is kind of
disruptive. I started in kindergarten in September 1963, and
already by that time, the norm for compulsory education was
kindergarten through 12th, age 5 to 18. We know a lot more
about brain development today than we knew in 1963, a lot more.
And yet the norm for compulsory education is still age 5 to 18,
K through 12. What if we just decided as a society that we
would adjust K to 12 and have it be for 4 to 17 year olds
rather than 5 to 18 year olds? We would start compulsory
education a year early.
Then we take all the money we are using for early childhood
education and put it into the birth to three rather than birth
to four, thus basically bulking up the money that we spend on
early childhood education from birth to three. I would argue
that a public investment in a kid's life from age four to five
produces a lot more bang for the buck than the public
investment we make in a kid's life between 17 and 18. And most
17-year-olds, frankly they could go to college or they could do
a gap year.
They could do volunteer work for a year before they decide
what they want to do with their life. So, I have always
wondered why somebody isn't pushing to change the educational
paradigm that has been in place now for six decades based on
the fact that we know much more about brain science than we
used to. Many of you have a reaction to that. I am kind of late
in my five minutes. But then, Chair, if you would, allow
anybody want to tackle that.
Dr. Jones-Taylor. I can start. Thank you for your question.
I think all things are on the table. I think that is a really
interesting proposal. I would obviously want to look into it
more. What I will say is that as a society, we have really been
pulling a fast one when it comes to childcare. We have pulled a
fast one on children, parents, providers, and the economy.
We tell children they are our future and how important it
is to invest in them. And then we turn around and allow for
policies that we know fly in the face of what science tells us,
young children's need for healthy development. We are pulling a
fast one on parents, especially women, when we say we want them
in the workforce. How many bipartisan conversations that we had
about women's attachment to the workforce and the main thing
that will keep working mothers attached to the workforce,
childcare.
We tell them you are on your own when it comes to that. And
we tell them expect to pay one and a half times your monthly
rent to afford it and we are not going to help you or will help
one in seven babies who are eligible for it. We are pulling a
fast one on providers to say you do the most important work,
thank you so much, and then offer them poverty wages and ask
them to get degrees of higher education, and tell them we are
not going to make it, we are not going to create supports for
them to make that work. And then we are going to fast track the
economy to think that we can do this on the cheap. We can have
an unfunded system, a broken system, and think that the economy
is really going to be where it should be.
COVID came in and said, the jig is up, we cannot do this
anymore. And so, we are at a place in history right now where
we are writing this story and Congress has the ability to write
yourselves in as the heroes to really say we are not going to
let this happen. And you guys have done that already. Again,
with the reauthorization of CCDBG and the regulations there
were so smart. I really want to talk to Senator Cassidy's point
that you guys were courageous, and you did the right thing.
Senator Kaine. I am well over my time, but I really
appreciate you starting the reflection back on my challenge.
Thank you. Thank you, Chair Murray.
The Chair. Thank you so much. And to all Senators and
staff, we are going to be--a series of votes are going to be
starting. Would any Senators please let us know if they wish to
ask questions of this panel, so we make sure that you get your
timing as quickly as possible.
With that. I will turn it over to Senator Smith.
Senator Smith. Thank you so much, Chair Murray and Ranking
Member Burr. This is just a great, great panel and I am loving
hearing all of you talk about this issue and in ways that I
think families can really relate to. And I am just so struck by
all the conversations I have had in Minnesota about how even
before the pandemic, childcare was a huge struggle for
families, the lack of access, the lack of affordability. And,
in 2018, the childcare crisis was estimated to be costing our
economy I think it is $57 billion a year.
This is something that affects all of us and all families.
In Minnesota, we estimate--the Minnesota Fed, Minneapolis Fed
estimates that 11 percent of moms with young children have
dropped out of the workforce during the pandemic, in part--in
large part because of lack of access to childcare.
I would like to turn to Ms. Reed, if I can, and looking for
you on my screen there, you really describe the catch 22 that
families are in right now. You have lack of access. It is too
expensive. You are juggling all the time school and work,
trying to figure out whether you are eligible or not for
childcare. I mean, it sounds like it is--I don't even know how
you do it. And all the time, your first thought is what is best
for Jared. How are you going to make sure that he is getting
what he needs and what can you do to make sure that is
possible.
I want to just start by asking you if you could, from your
perspective, what would a highly functioning childcare system
for you and Jared, what would it look like? Both, because you
have talked some about quality, but in terms of access and
affordability and, kind of what it would look like.
Ms. Reed. Thank you for the question, Senator Smith. For
me, it looks like a functioning--we have, like I said, a low
ratio. Like lower--less kids in the classroom, which means the
teacher has time and they can actually be able to pay attention
to, and basically be able to meet the needs.
Like I told you, there is developing at this age, so there
are a lot of things that you might one plan in mind, but the
minute, Johnny decides he doesn't want to do that, do you have
the time and the attention to kind of maneuver through that
with more kids in the classroom, right. So, I just truly
believe that high quality first starts with less kids in the
classroom.
A curriculum. Like a lot of--just having a curriculum and
having a plan of, what the kids are working on. Educate the
teachers. Teachers, who actually know how to--who are educated
and taught how to deal with certain issues in the classroom.
So, I believe education is a big key, a major key as well.
Again, just having that time to be able to actually work
with the children one on one. This is the time where their
brain is developing. This is the time that they need the most,
where their minds are being shaped. So, I just believe that the
more care that they get, the more time that they receive in the
classroom, it really helps them for the rest of their life. And
it starts at that age. It starts zero to three.
I actually believe that quality looks like, of course,
again, having less kids in the classroom and then educated
teachers that are well trained to be able to help shape and
develop the minds of the young children.
Senator Smith. Yes. And you are--as you are talking about
quality and the educators that are ready and prepared and have
the curriculum and the place in order to provide great care,
you also are talking some about having access to choices near
where you live and work. Because you can't be driving, all over
town or getting all over town to drop Jared off when you are
trying to figure out, the logistics of life. And then you also
are talking about affordability.
Now, let me ask you about this. What if we had a system
where you were--basically you were never going to have to pay
more than 7 percent of your income for childcare. What would
that mean to you? What difference would that make to you and
your life?
Ms. Reed. It would definitely be a huge difference in my
life. I would do anything for my son to have quality care, even
if it means going without--whatever it takes. So, to have that
percentage dimmed down to that minimum, it would be a great
help for my family, for my son and I, just being able to have a
peace of mind, just to be able to go to work and not have to
think about, Okay, well, we are going to pay the light bill or
are we going to get food on the table. Or are we going to pay
the cell phone bill or, am I going--simple things like that
matters.
Just being able to have relief of that would be phenomenal.
It would be such a relief--it would be me actually being able
to focus on my child when we get home right now, trying to
figure this and worrying about that----
Senator Smith. Constantly worrying about paying bills,
because you are not going to--that money that you are not
putting into childcare, you are going to be able to put into,
rent and utilities and better food and gas for your car and
insurance and so forth. So, Madam Chair, I am almost out of
time, but I want to just point out to everybody, I think you
may know this, that I am really proud to be working with
Senator Murray and others on our Committee on the Child Care
for Working Families Act. And that is what it would do. It
would address systemically the challenges that we have in
childcare.
This is a hard problem to solve, but it is a solvable
problem. And one of the things that it would do is to make sure
that you would not be paying more than 7 percent of your income
for childcare as long as your income is no more than 150
percent of the median income in your state. So, I bet that
would be the case for you, Ms. Reed, and it would be the case
for many, many, many people in Minnesota.
I think this is exactly the kind of solution that we need
in order to address this problem of childcare, which is a
solvable problem if we just put our minds to it. Thank you,
Madam Chair.
The Chair. Thank you so much.
Senator Rosen.
Senator Rosen. Well, thank you, Chair Murray and Ranking
Member Burr. Thank you really for holding this important
hearing. It affects so many and of course, our most vulnerable,
our children. And thank you to our witnesses for all that you
do and participating today. But, I want to talk about a
nonprofit childcare and SBA loans. And, we have been discussing
today and as Senator Smith has just so eloquently told us,
millions of American families have difficulty affording
childcare and shortages in availability, costs that are out of
reach. It is a growing problem. It has been exacerbated by the
pandemic.
Some childcare providers, they are at risk of permanent
closure. We have to think creatively and urgently to help
families across this country about our solutions. So currently
only for-profit childcare providers have full access to all of
the Small Business Administration loan products, while
nonprofit providers only have access to the SBA's micro-loan
program. That is capped at $50,000. This blocks access for
capital for nonprofit childcare providers to establish care
facilities or even expand the ones they have.
To address this problem, I introduced the Small Business
Child Care Investment Act. It is bipartisan legislation that
would allow qualified nonprofit small business childcare
providers access to the same SBA loans, so that they can
provide quality, affordable childcare everywhere that they can.
So, Ms. Khan, as the Executive Director of a nonprofit
childcare center, can you talk about the financial challenges
that are unique to nonprofit, please?
Ms. Khan. Thank you, Senator Rosen, for the question, and
thank you for supporting legislation that allows for more loans
for childcare centers, especially nonprofits. I would say
access to capital is a big problem with childcare centers in
general. Because the budgets are on such a small margin, a lot
of traditional banks do not want to invest in childcare. So, we
have to go to different financial institutions to get support.
So, access to more loan products with the SBA would be helpful.
I think in general though, we need to make sure that we are
also supporting the long-term strategy to make sure centers
have the finances that they need to be able to operate in a way
that makes sense. So, I really appreciate all of the stimulus
funds that have gone into childcare, and I hope we can do
something that is more permanent, so we have a permanent
solution to our problems in early education. Thank you.
Senator Rosen. I want to ask Dr. Jones-Taylor, could you
also talk about what improving access to capital for nonprofit
childcare centers, what it would do to assist with stability,
upgrades to facilities, expansions, and what it really gives to
the communities that they serve? How is it going to uplift the
families that is going to serve right there where they live?
Dr. Jones-Taylor. Thank you for your question. We know that
53 percent of centers, just to underscore some of what you have
already said, 53 percent of centers and 25 percent of family
childcare providers applied for a PPP loan. And in a follow-up
survey, just half of those were surveyed, who applied were
actually approved because of what Ms. Khan said, the challenges
there with relationships to banking and the risk that banks
saw. So, this is very interesting to think about.
We know that if you actually have a system that is there in
good times and bad, that is important for childcare. Senator
Burr mentioned K to 12 and that was a system that stayed open
in the midst, or at least educators were able to receive their
paychecks, and we weren't worried about the collapse of the
public K-12 system because it is treated as a system. We are in
a real crisis where the true threat of collapse of childcare is
not some fantasy or some doomsday fantasy. It is truly
something that we are concerned about.
Being able to stabilize the system and make sure that we
actually fund it so that when we hit a crisis, it will be there
afterward, is actually critical. We need to shift the way we
think about this and treat it as a system and an infrastructure
that is.
Senator Rosen. Thank you. I know I don't have much time
left, so I will take this off the record, but I just want to
put a marker down because I am worried about the mental health
challenges for children. They have been rising because of the
pandemic. It compounds the trauma for our foster children, our
homeless children, and children who may have experienced
violence or other things in their home during the pandemic.
We need to have robust trauma informed training for our
early childhood educators as well. And I know my time has
expired, so I will be glad to take those off the record. But I
just want to know--let you know that is coming. Thank you so
much again for everything you do. I yield back, Madam Chair.
The Chair. Thank you.
Senator Braun.
Senator Braun. Thank you, Madam Chair. This will be for all
witnesses here, and I am going to cite what I think in general,
not only childcare, I think, which has been kind of revealed as
we have dealt with the COVID saga, but I have wrestled with
health care in general, describing it as a system that we spend
so much money on and delivers such poor results, whether your
health care is being paid for by the Government or through
private health insurance. And childcare is kind of a subset of
it. It doesn't fall into any of that kind of coverage.
But I think we are at a really pivotal point when it comes
to health care in general, childcare. Can we reform the system
as it currently exists, which seems to be cluttered with so
many restrictions, impediments to free markets and the
enterprise side of it, and where it begs then for Government to
get more involved?
Love to hear your opinion on the state of the health care
system, childcare specifically, and do we need more Government,
or do we need to get Government out of the way to let
entrepreneurs and more grassroots solutions address the issues?
Anyone can start.
Dr. Jones-Taylor. I will take a quick stab at it and then
we can go on. I will be brief. We have that right now. We have
incredible ingenuity into the childcare system out of
necessity. We have family childcare providers who are opening
up because they love this work, because it is so important
despite all of the barriers and challenges we have talked
about. So, we have given the free market a go at the childcare
system, and it has failed. It has fundamentally failed the
childcare system and families and the economy, because you
cannot do this with--you need to make sure that this is--this
is a labor intensive, highly skilled endeavor on the part of
professionals. They need to be compensated accordingly.
Parents cannot afford that. As I said earlier, we subsidize
a lot of things in this country that we have placed value on.
We need to show that we value this work and truly stop asking
parents and providers to do this on the fly and to be
innovative. We have tried that. It is not working. COVID has
shown that.
Let's continue to allow for innovation. We don't want to
stave that off, but we need a true Government investment in
this work.
Senator Braun. Thank you.
Ms. Perry.
Ms. Perry. Thank you, Senator, and I am happy to build on
that. What I would say is that our Secretary of the Department
of Health and Human Services says that we want to buy health
and not health services. And I think what we all want to buy is
childcare that actually delivers on healthy development,
learning, and well-being for all children and a support for
working families so they can be on the job and focused on the
job every day. And to do that, I do think that Government has a
role.
I think this pandemic has showed that our public health
infrastructure needed significant investment to meet the
challenges of a historic pandemic. And I think the same is true
for childcare. I think the Government has a role in building
roads and bridges that we all use, and I think the Government
has a role in supporting high quality childcare for working
families in this country, so that our economy--so that people
can get work and our economy can be working for all of us.
Senator Braun. Ms. Reed.
Ms. Reed. Thank you for the question, and I strongly do
believe that Government should step in at this time. I believe
that entrepreneurs and families have extended themselves as
much as we can give, as much as entrepreneurs can give in that
realm, and I believe that it would help out tremendously if the
Government stepped in and helped fund it with those particular
issues.
Senator Braun. Ms. Khan.
Ms. Khan. I think that parents are already extended as far
as they can be, and it is not enough for us to provide
competent staff members adequate compensation. For example, a
preschool parent that is paying $200 a week for care, that
covers about 50 hours of care a week, and that is a little over
$3.00 an hour per child in the classroom. So, when you look
at--it looks like it is a lot for families and it is a lot in a
family budget, but when it comes to the childcare center and
what the childcare center has to work with, it is very low--it
is a very low amount for us to cover our needs and create a
system that is stable for our families and our youngest
children. So, we need--we do need intervention.
Senator Braun. Thank you. And I think you all stated fairly
clearly that the health care system across the spectrum,
especially in childcare, is broken. And I think it is an
invitation to those out there that want to reform it that the
need is there. And my belief is that it is a combination of
trying to galvanize the private sector to do a better job, but
there is frustration that a lot is left begging. And I think
you all reflect that.
The Chair. Thank you. And I will have to let all my
Committee Members know we have two votes occurring. So, I am
going to ask all Senators to limit the--we have three left,
Hassan, Lujan, and Hickenlooper. If you can limit it to 4
minutes and we will submit questions for the record. And I will
begin with Senator Hassan.
Senator Hassan. Well, thank you very much, Senator Murray
and Ranking Member Burr, and thank you to our witnesses for
being here today. I also just want to thank Chair Murray for
reintroducing the Child Care for Working Families Act, a
comprehensive plan. I am glad to support, and I think, as we
all know, COVID-19 has really highlighted the importance of
childcare, the need for our country to do better, and it has
also highlighted the importance in particular of caregivers.
A question to Dr. Jones-Taylor. We have an opportunity to
better target resources so that childcare workers who are often
women of color receive the training that they need and receive
the pay and benefits that they need to support their own
families. Dr. Jones-Taylor, what do you think we need to do to
recruit, retain, and support the childcare workforce?
Dr. Jones-Taylor. Thank you for your question. You know, we
need to have decent wages. I think we have heard this across
the board, certainly from Ms. Khan, how difficult it is to
recruit and retain staff who are seen as professionals when
they are being paid less than $12.00 an hour, when their bosses
can't provide--directors cannot provide health care and they
can get that elsewhere.
Really shoring up the system in a way that invests in our
workforce, and really stop paying lip service to this idea that
they are valued, and then turning around and doing everything
that shows counter to that to that idea. I am sure Ms. Khan can
speak more on that, but it is very important that we put our
money where our mouth is.
Senator Hassan. Well, thank you. I want to move on to a
different question, but I will follow-up with Ms. Khan on the
record. To Ms. Perry, early intervention can help improve the
health and educational trajectory of children who experience
disabilities and developmental delays through appropriate and
timely therapy and support. Over the past year, occupational
therapists, physical therapists, and speech pathologists were
not able to see as many children for hands on therapy as they
usually do now.
Now, as therapy visits return to pre-COVID levels, many
providers have observed significant delays among young
children, including crawling and walking later, heightened
anxiety and fear, and in some cases, less strength and
endurance. Ms. Perry, have you seen these issues and how do you
think childcare providers can best address these concerns,
including connecting families with screening, counseling, and
other services?
Ms. Perry. Thank you for that question, Senator. And I
think the truth is there is still a lot that we still have yet
to learn about learning loss, some of the other things that we
have spoken to about the impact on child abuse and neglect,
because reporting has been suppressed, because schools have
been closed and they are primary reporters. And when we think
about learning loss, we are often thinking about it in
relationship to being in school.
But I think you are pointing out just really children's
development, even in their youngest years, and the need for a
really more intensive early intervention supports. I spoke to
this earlier, I do think our early intervention system has been
under-resourced for some time. We do need more support services
that can push into integrated childcare settings and really
provide those kinds of one on one, individualized supports that
these young children need, and also support their families in
helping their children develop to the fullest potential.
Senator Hassan. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chair. Senator Hickenlooper.
Senator Hickenlooper. Yes, thank you, Chair Murray, and
really appreciate the testimony today. Dr. Jones-Taylor, you
mentioned the story in your testimony that caught my attention.
I was elected Mayor of Denver in 2003, my first elected office,
and we began a two-and-a-half-year process of--we had over 100
civic leaders from various backgrounds involved in an early
childhood education effort. And we eventually went to the
ballot in 2006. I think Denver was the first city in the
country to make sure that we had high quality early childhood
education for every four-year-old.
Dr. Jones, you described something that caught my attention
in the sense that it was an early educator who had a master's
degree, 10 years' experience, but ultimately had to leave the
workforce because she made less than $30,000 a year and her own
family's childcare exceeded her take-home pay.
I am concerned that we are going to have an exodus of
childcare professionals from the industry, which is just going
to exacerbate the existing problems. But we are also going to
have trouble recruiting, encouraging folks to enter the early
education field. So, Dr. Jones-Taylor and Ms. Khan or whoever,
what do you see as the most pressing need that we should
address now to make sure that we can bolster the early
childhood education workforce?
Dr. Jones-Taylor. Thank you for your question, Senator. And
unfortunately, your fears have already come to pass in many
ways. Early on in the pandemic, we lost 350,000 childcare
providers to the system who were--left the system. And only
half of those have come back. We also know that we have lost an
estimated one in six childcare jobs in this country as a result
of the pandemic. Stabilization funds, the coverage that
Congress put in place those--this is incredibly important to
make sure that we shore up the system so that it will remain,
it will be intact when the economy gets back going. And the
economy will not be back going unless we have the support for
providers.
Ms. Khan. Thank you for your question. I definitely agree
with Dr. Jones-Taylor. The stabilization funds have helped us
continue to operate with lower enrollment and same overhead
costs and actually more staff and PPE costs. But we also need
to have a long-term solution so that your fears do not really
come to pass in more of a way than they already have, because
after this period is over--our system was in trouble before
this period started and this just exacerbated it with COVID-19.
We need a long-term solution in order to attract and retain
highly qualified educators. We also need low-cost educational
opportunities for people who are already in the field to
continue to progress in their knowledge and skills and obtain
their degrees.
Senator Hickenlooper. Great. Thank you both. Just real
quickly, and I guess Ms. Perry you could answer this, the vast
majority of childcare providers in Colorado and in this country
are small businesses, generally, less than 10 employees, tight
margins. And yet only 7 percent of the childcare providers were
estimated to have received small business support through the
PPP.
Now many states are using CARES Act funds to provide grants
to keep providers afloat. Those efforts were bolstered by the
American Rescue Plan. But how did North Carolina use these
resources to support childcare providers in your state? And,
how can we better connect childcare providers to the resources
available to them?
Ms. Perry. Thank you for that question, Senator. Yes, North
Carolina did use some of its Federal funds specifically for
stabilization grants to childcare programs. We pushed those
grants out very quickly and aligned them to the size of the
childcare program to get them for programs that were serving
higher percentages of infants and toddlers, the number of
children on childcare subsidy, and quality level because it
costs more to produce higher quality care.
We have certainly used a significant portion of our funding
for grants and some other things we did for childcare programs
who support their childcare workers with teacher bonuses and a
mental health hotline and a vaccine scheduling service to help
them get vaccinated. So, we have used all of our resources to
the fullest extent possible. We need every tool in the toolbox.
Certainly, business loans are a way to get working capital,
although I would say, as you pointed out, sir, most small
childcare businesses operate on such thin margins that loans
will be challenging for childcare businesses to manage.
Senator Hickenlooper. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I
yield my time.
The Chair. Thank you so much. Senator Burr, do you have any
additional questions? Okay, thank you so much. And to all of
our Senators who had questions, they weren't able to make it,
we will leave time for that in the record. And Dr. Jones-
Taylor, I will ask for a question, not for an answer from you,
because we do have votes, but I would like to find out why
there is a funding gap in childcare where parents pay more than
they can afford, and educators earn poverty level wages. So, if
you could submit that in writing, I would really like to help
make sure we all understand it.
With that, we will end our hearing today. I want to thank
Dr. Jones. Taylor, Ms. Perry, Ms. Reed, and Ms. Khan for
joining us today, and all of our colleagues who participated as
well. I think today's discussion made clear what many parents
in the country already know, that we have to address this
childcare crisis if we are going to build an economy that
really works for working families.
For any Senators who wish to ask additional questions,
questions for the record will be due in 10 business days on
Tuesday, May 11th, at 5 p.m. The hearing record will also
remain open until then for Members who wish to submit
additional materials for the record.
The Committee will meet tomorrow, April 28th, at 10 a.m. in
room 430 in the Dirksen Senate Office Building for a hearing on
the mental health and substance use disorder crisis. Again,
thank you so much to our witnesses today. With that, the
Committee stands adjourned.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Responses by Myra Jones-Taylor to a Questions of Senator Murray,
Senator Lujan, and Senator Rosen
senator murray
Question 1. I would like to find out why there is a funding gap in
childcare where parents pay more than they can afford, and educators
earn poverty level wages. So, if you could submit that in writing, I
would really like to help make sure we all understand it.
Answer. At your request, I am writing to explain in greater detail
why child care in the United States is so expensive for families, while
providers make so little. The average price of child care for an infant
in a center in 2019 ranged from $11,444 to $11,896, according to data
from Child Care Aware of America. Conservatively, that price represents
nearly 17 percent of the median family's household income that same
year--more than double the 7 percent affordability standard set by the
Department of Health and Human Services. Yet, even with these
unaffordably high costs for families, the average child care worker
made less than $12 per hour that same year--with many providers and
their families relying on public income support programs like SNAP,
Medicaid, CHIP, TANF, or the EITC to make ends meet. The reason for
these unaffordably high costs and unaffordably low wages is simple--the
free market is not capable of adequately sustaining a child care system
that can provide, safe, affordable, and high-quality care for all
families that need it, particularly for those with young children. The
cost modeling below, adapted from a report by the Center for American
Progress describes this market failure in greater detail.
According to CAP's cost modeling, the expenses for a typical
center-based infant care program meeting minimum state licensing
standards break down as follows: 63 percent for staff salaries,
including lead teachers, assistants, support staff, and a center
director; 5 percent for benefits; 9 percent for rent and utilities; 15
percent for office and administration; and 8 percent for materials and
food. Assuming a 1:4 staff:child ratio--the maximum recommended ratio
for safely serving infants (although some states set licensing
standards at a higher level for this age group), and the highest range
of the average price of child care based on Child Care Aware's survey
data--the average income going into a classroom of 8 infants with two
teachers would be $95,168. Using CAP's cost modeling described above
and absent any additional public support, that leaves just under
$60,000 to spread between two teachers and likely, at least one center
director, even with parent fees being higher than public college
tuition in most states. These low wages and benefits drive the quality
of care downward by leading to higher turnover rates, and early
educator stress--making it more difficult for early educators to
facilitate the nurturing, consistent relationships young children need
to thrive. It is estimated that to actually provide quality care for
infants, including pay parity for early educators with their peers
teaching kindergarten, parents would have to spend more than $27,000 a
year for child care centers to make the math work. Unfortunately,
parents cannot afford to pay any more than they already do for care--in
fact, many cannot even afford what they do pay--leading to a system
where low compensation for early educators is a feature, not a bug. We
can and must do better, and increased public investment is the answer.
I appreciate the opportunity to testify before the Committee last
week and your continued leadership on these issues, and look forward to
continuing to work with you in the days and weeks to come to ensure all
families have access to the quality, affordable child care they need
for both them and their children to thrive. Our Federal policy team at
ZERO TO THREE would be happy to provide any additional resources or
information you might request.
senator lujan
Question 1. Federal investment in the child care sector is
insufficient to provide affordable access to families and sustaining
wages to child care workers. This is why I was proud to cosponsor the
Child Care for Working Families Act, which was included in President
Biden's American Families Plan, to ensure no family has to pay more
than 7 percent of its income on child care costs. How would passage and
implementation of this historic legislation change outcomes for
children, families and workers across the United States?
Answer. The Child Care for Working Families Act, which ZERO TO
THREE has endorsed, would be a game-changer for children, families, and
early educators if passed. For low-and moderate-income families,
guaranteed access to affordable child care would not only support their
abilities to work or participate in school or job training, it would
also dramatically reduce their day-to-day child care costs and care-
related stress. For early educators, who currently make less than $12
an hour on average, guaranteed access to a living wage with a pathway
to parity with their elementary school peers would better compensate
them for their critical work, reduce the financial stress placed on
their own families, and reduce turnover in their field. And finally,
for children, especially infants and toddlers, increased investments in
high quality care would mean stronger early development, with benefits
compounding over the course of their lives. In the first 3 years of
children's lives, their brains are making more than a million neural
connections every second--laying the foundation for their future
development and learning. High quality care supports their healthy
development, especially for children in families with low incomes,
while lower quality care does not produce similar benefits and can even
be detrimental to children's development.
Question 2. You state in your testimony that the lack of access to
child care costs our economy. How much is lost each year in wages, work
productivity, economic activity and tax revenue due to insufficient
access to child care?
Answer. A 2019 report from Ready Nation examined the economic
impacts of the lack of affordable child care on parents, employers and
taxpayers. It found that every year, on average, parents pay $37
billion in additional costs, businesses $13 billion, and taxpayers $7
billion. Altogether, this adds up to $57 billion in lost economic
output every year.
Question 3. By not making Federal investments in child care, we are
not only losing money due to parents' lost economic activity; we are
also losing money because we are not investing in our children's
future. According to Professor James Heckman's 2017 research, for every
dollar invested in childcare, the annual rate of return is $6.30 per
child. While the investments made in the COVID-19 relief packages have
been historic, they are insufficient to permanently support and
strengthen our aging and insufficient child care infrastructure. For
example, the Child Care and Development Block Grant provides a
necessary subsidy for families to afford local child care. However,
even with the investments we have made in CCDBG during the pandemic,
access is still insufficient. According to the latest data, how many
federally eligible children receive a subsidy?
Answer. Thank you for bringing up Dr. Heckman's important research.
You are absolutely right, that our failure to invest in our young
children today has long-term as well as short-term economic
implications. You are also right that the investments included in the
ARP were designed to prevent the collapse of our child care system, and
are alone not sufficient to make the necessary long-term, foundational
changes the child care sector so desperately needs. Just in 1 in 7
federally eligible children had access to a child care subsidy prior to
the pandemic in 2017--the latest year for which data were available.
Even for those children who did receive a subsidy, there was no
guarantee that it would allow them to afford high quality care.
According to the National Women's Law Center's 2019 state child care
assistance report, just four states set their provider payment rates at
the federally recommended level of at or above the 75th percentile of
current market rates.
Question 4. How many infants and toddlers, who are developmentally
most in need of high quality, affordable child care and education, have
access to subsidies according to ZERO TO THREE's State of Babies
Yearbook?
Answer. ZERO TO THREE's State of Babies Yearbook 2021 examined the
broader population of infants and toddlers who could benefit from child
care subsidies. Looking at all infants and toddlers in families with
incomes at or below 150 percent of their state's median income, just
4.2 percent had access to a child care subsidy.
Question 5. Which racial and ethnic groups have the least access to
subsidies and quality, affordable child care where they live and work?
Answer. The Center for Law and Social Policy conducted an analysis
in 2019 that found Black children had the highest rate of access to
CCDBG subsidies, with Asian and Hispanic children being potentially
underserved. However, notably, access to CCDBG subsidies among eligible
children was low among all racial and ethnic groups nationwide. Access
to subsidies does not equate to access to quality care, however.
Analyses of ECLS-K data have shown that children living in families
with incomes below the Federal poverty line, as well as children of
color are less likely than their non-poor and White peers to be
enrolled in high-quality care in both centers and homes. And data from
the Center for American Progress' child care deserts report indicate
that infants and toddlers are less likely than their older peers to
have access to licensed child care within their communities, especially
those living in rural areas and areas with lower median family incomes.
Question 6. Families' ability to access child care not only depends
on affordability, but on a center being open and having staff to teach
their children. This cannot happen without our essential child care
workers. How many child care jobs have been lost since the start of the
pandemic?
Answer. The latest jobs data indicate that more than 1 in 7 (14.6
percent) of jobs in the child care sector have been lost since the
start of the pandemic. This equates to 152,800 jobs lost since February
2020.
senator rosen
Question 1.As we talk about improving workforce training for child
care providers, we need to also think about the diverse needs of the
children being cared for and reach beyond the basics. A critical piece
of quality childhood development education is understanding how to best
care for children who have experienced trauma and adverse events,
including how to identify children early who could benefit from
referrals for specialized services and how to care for children through
a trauma-informed lens. Mental health challenges for children have been
rising due to the pandemic, and this compounds the trauma that our
foster youth, homeless children, and children who have experienced or
witnessed violence have already been through. All too often our
children who need help the most are the ones least likely to get it. So
as we work to expand access to quality child care programs, how can we
best build in trauma-informed training?
Answer. One of the best ways to build in trauma-informed care
training, along with ensuring ongoing or forthcoming funding increases
for childcare, local or regional child care resource and referral
organizations, could:
Work to establish a continuity of care and
collaboration with programs and service providers demonstrating
expertise in infant and early childhood mental health to
provide support and information on trauma exposure, its impact,
and treatment options for young children.
Y For example, one evidence-based, effective strategy
that providers may consider is Infant and Early
Childhood Mental Health Consultation (IECMHC).
Y IECMHC is a prevention-based approach that teams
mental health professionals with people who work with
young children and their families to improve their
social, emotional, and behavioral health and
development in the settings where children learn and
grow.
Y IECMHC builds the capacity of providers and families
to understand the powerful influence of their
relationships and interactions on young children's
development. IECMHC can improve children's well-being
and help prevent mental health problems due to the
Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation
partnership with adults in children's lives.
Y IECMHC includes skilled observations, individualized
strategies, and early identification of children with
and at risk for mental health challenges.
Ensure State child care administrators receive
guidance on offering childcare providers avenues to use funds
for IECMHC as streamlined a manner as possible.
Y For example, this may involve allowing providers to
``opt-in'' to direct a portion of funds for IECMHC
through a State-administered IECMHC network or to
``opt-in'' to regionally/locally coordinated IECMCH
services that the State arranges or encourages with
regional health and human services entities.
Additional considerations:
Allow a State's use of quality child care funds to
support the training and professional development of the child
care workforce through activities that build awareness, skills,
and leadership for child care providers related to implementing
best practices in trauma-informed care.
Y For example, allow funds to support culturally and
linguistically appropriate training, emphasizing and
acknowledging the compounding impact of structural
inequity and addressing trauma's intersections with
culture, history, race, gender, location, and language
among young children.
The ARP highlighted how childcare stabilization funds
could support caregivers and families' mental health, which
moves the needle toward a culture of care. However, additional
support could aid in establishing mental health consultation
networks as resources for referral that can address, minimize,
and treat secondary traumatic stress and increase staff
wellness.
Visit the Center of Excellence page to learn additional information
about what IECMHC is: https://www.iecmhc.org/about/.
______
Responses by Susan Gale Perry to Questions of Senator Rosen
senator rosen
Question 1. As we talk about improving workforce training for child
care providers, we need to also think about the diverse needs of the
children being cared for and reach beyond the basics. A critical piece
of quality childhood development education is understanding how to best
care for children who have experienced trauma and adverse events,
including how to identify children early who could benefit from
referrals for specialized services and how to care for children through
a trauma-informed lens. Mental health challenges for children have been
rising due to the pandemic, and this compounds the trauma that our
foster youth, homeless children, and children who have experienced or
witnessed violence have already been through. All too often our
children who need help the most are the ones least likely to get it. So
as we work to expand access to quality child care programs, how can we
best build in trauma-informed training?
Answer. North Carolina recognizes that a high-quality early
childhood system must incorporate mental health supports and a trauma-
informed lens to improve outcomes for children in both the short and
long term. The North Carolina Early Childhood Action Plan, released in
2019, outlines actionable measures North Carolina will take to increase
social emotional well-being and resilience in the state's early
childhood system. Accordingly, our state is investing in scaling
initiatives that work, and building innovative programs to meet this
goal.
In April, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human
Services established a new Division of Child and Family Well-Being.
This new Division will bring together programs across multiple
divisions to maximize services and outcomes for children and their
families, including all child nutrition programs (WIC, SNAP and CACFP),
the full range of prevention services for children beginning at birth,
children's mental health services, and early intervention programs.
Examples of Current North Carolina Initiatives for Trauma-Informed
Child Care:
In 2005, North Carolina launched the Promoting
Healthy Social Behaviors in Child Care Centers (HSB) project
which uses the evidence based CSEFEL Pyramid Model to improve
the social, emotional, and behavioral health of children in
licensed child care centers. This is accomplished by providing
specialized professional development and coaching to early
childhood teachers. HSB coaching provides teachers with
specific skills and knowledge that reduces preschool expulsions
and increases teachers' abilities to provide socially and
emotionally responsive classrooms.
In 2018, the North Carolina Department of Health and
Human Services partnered with Duke University to develop an
intensive training and coaching initiative for infant and
toddler teachers and child care center administrators. The
goals of this initiative are to: (1) promote understanding of
the impacts of stress and trauma on infants and toddlers; (2)
develop the skills of infant/toddler teachers to form
supportive, resilience-building relationships with children in
their classrooms; and (3) identify strategies to support early
childhood teacher health and well-being.
In 2021, the Department partnered with the North
Carolina Infant and Young Child Mental Health Association to
establish an early childhood mental health endorsement system
for mental health and technical assistance practitioners. The
endorsement will establish standards and a recognition system
for practitioners who provide early childhood mental health and
wellness-related supports to early childhood teachers and
staff.
Through recent Federal investments in early
intervention, North Carolina will increase access to early
intervention services and strengthen infant mental health
supports by expanding program eligibility to include children
at-risk for developmental delay. Families with infants and
toddlers who meet eligibility criteria will have increased
access to specialized supports and services addressing trauma
and augmenting resilience. Currently, North Carolina early
intervention personnel and providers receive training and
professional development in trauma-informed care, social
emotional screening, assessment, and diagnostic tools.
Recommendations for Expanding Trauma-Informed Early Childhood
Education:
1. Require and dedicate funding for child and adult mental
health supports and trauma-informed care in child care
settings.
2. Require IDEA Part B (619) to support whole child services,
including provisions for social and emotional health, in a
manner similar to IDEA Part C.
3. Fund research and development for scalable early childhood
classroom interventions that promote mental well-being and
address childhood trauma including the effects of racism and
other systemic oppressions.
______
Responses by Khadija Lewis Khan to Questions of Senator Lujan, and
Senator Rosen
senator lujan
Question 1. Ms. Lewis Khan, your testimony highlights those
disparities in development emerge in infancy and widen over time. We
know, however, that high-quality child care programs and educators can
close these gaps. Would quality child care providers also reduce close
poverty gaps for working families and for their children in the short-
and long-term?
Answer. As you noted, high-quality child care and early learning
programs are instrumental in working with families to identify, provide
the necessary supports, and mitigate developmental disparities in young
children. In partnership with services like Early Intervention, Early
Head Start, and Head Start, we are able to intervene and help ensure
children have as strong of a foundation as possible during these
critically important early years.
This partnership that exists between families, programs, and early
childhood educators is also instrumental in addressing some of the
adverse impacts that families experience as a result of living in
poverty. Beautiful Beginnings Child Care Center and early learning
communities are critically important hubs for families. We allow
families to return to work or stay employed, to pursue educational
degrees, and/or to carry out other caretaking needs with the peace of
mind that their children are safe, well taken care of, and actively
expanding their learning and development.
Thanks to partnerships that child care programs have developed with
other organizations across our communities, families have access to
important services that allow them to navigate difficult realities like
food and housing insecurity or limited access to healthcare services.
At Beautiful Beginnings, along with many childcare centers working with
families in poverty, we provide three nutritional well balanced meals a
day for our children. We host evidence based, culturally competent
parenting groups that improve children's relationships with their
parents and improve children's life outcomes. We are trusted and
reliable members of families' community. Without a doubt, child care
and early learning programs are invaluable community hubs for families,
especially those living in poverty.
However, the supports quality programs share with families living
in poverty are not enough to address the problem of poverty in its
totality. While high-quality child care can help alleviate some of the
pressures families living in poverty are experiencing, they do not
remove all of the underlying causes leading families to live in
poverty. I implore Members of Congress to address root causes that
leave too many families, and by extension too many children, in our
country to live in poverty. High costs of living, jobs that don't pay a
living wage, a lack of paid and sick leave, and systemic barriers
rooted in generations of racism, classism, and sexism that deny access
to economic progression, particularly for Black, Indigenous, Latino,
and other families of color, are some of the underlying causes to
poverty that when coupled with unaffordable child care costs or a lack
of access to safe, quality child care create what feel like inescapable
conditions for families in poverty.
Yet, the reality is that there are policy solutions, that when
paired with access to affordable, quality child care and early
learning, can have a significant impact on reducing poverty, especially
for young children and their families, in the short-and long-term. Some
of these solutions can be found in A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty.
a policy agenda released after the National Academy of Sciences study
on child poverty, as well as in the Our Kids, Our Future: Solutions to
Child Poverty in the U.S. compendium released by the U.S. Child Poverty
Action Group outlining more than 20 papers that provide recommendations
to significantly reduce child poverty and improve child well-being.
I undoubtedly think that high-quality child care and early learning
programs play a critical role in supporting families in poverty in the
short-and long-term, yet our work alone is not enough to drastically
alleviate and end poverty in this country. I, and so many of my
colleagues in the early care and education space, remain committed to
working alongside you to identify and implement policy solutions that
will bring young children and their families, including those of many
members of the early learning workforce who are forced to subsist on
poverty level wages, out of poverty.
Thank you once again for this opportunity and I look forward to
continued discussion and partnership.
senator rosen
Question 1.As we talk about improving workforce training for child
care providers, we need to also think about the diverse needs of the
children being cared for and reach beyond the basics. A critical piece
of quality childhood development education is understanding how to best
care for children who have experienced trauma and adverse events,
including how to identify children early who could benefit from
referrals for specialized services and how to care for children through
a trauma-informed lens. Mental health challenges for children have been
rising due to the pandemic, and this compounds the trauma that our
foster youth, homeless children, and children who have experienced or
witnessed violence have already been through. All too often our
children who need help the most are the ones least likely to get it. So
as we work to expand access to quality child care programs, how can we
best build in trauma-informed training?''
Answer. Young children require nurturing, supportive, and
consistent relationships with their guardians and caregivers to thrive.
They also require collaborative engagement among the people who care
for them. In order to best meet the needs of young children, who have
experienced adversity, we need to support the educators who spend the
majority of the day with the children. Investing in training, ongoing
professional development, and effective supervision are necessary
systems of support for educators. Early childhood mental health
consultation, that is trauma-informed, developmentally appropriate, and
culturally relevant, are important for educators to effectively work
with all children, especially those dealing with trauma.
In my experience, early childhood educators are often the ones to
have consistent conversations with families about their child's growth
and development including red flags for developmental delays or
concerns in children's social emotional or cognitive development. In
consultation with the family, we often refer children to Early
Intervention, or to the child's pediatrician for follow-up, if
necessary. Due to the trusting relationship that we build with each
child and their family, we are able to have honest conversations with
the aim of supporting the child and family to improve their situation
and promote healthy development. Sometimes this includes helping
alleviate stress at home by connecting families with services such as
domestic violence supports, housing, food assistance, job search and
connections to other support services in the community.
The child care environment can be a place of hope and healing. With
well-prepared teachers and administrators, who are not constantly
turning over as a result of low compensation, children are able to
develop strong and stable bonds with the people who are caring for
them. These bonds lay the foundation for healthy growth and development
over the child's lifetime. Children cannot effectively learn when their
basic needs for safety security have not been met. Renee Boynton
Jarrett (2016, The Raising of America), reminds us that in the early
years, children are learning about the world around them through the
answers to these critical questions, ``Is this a safe world?; What will
happen when I feel afraid?; What will happen when I feel hungry?; What
will happen when I feel scared?; Can I count on you?''
For child care to promote development and mental health, and best
meet the needs of vulnerable children and families, we need to consider
multiple levels of influence, for example:
Child care teachers' capacities to develop secure
attachment relationships with each of the children in their
care;
Organizational practices that hire, support, and
retain staff who reflect, and respect, the diversity of the
children and families they serve;
Systemic professional development and resources that
support the workforce in strength-based and trauma-informed
practices with the goal of nurturing relationship formation and
dismantling biased attributions;
Training protocols that build in opportunities for
child care providers to build skills such as: Observation,
Intentional Listening and Empathy, and Informal Assessment
(ie., wondering with parents about the child's unique
vulnerabilities, strengths and needs);
Supports for child care providers to feel empowered
to engage with home visitors, early intervention and mental
health professionals (and others) as part of a care
coordination team, as needed;
We also need to remain aware that early childhood
educators are often experiencing trauma themselves. This is the
trauma that comes from living in poverty and not being able to
consistently make ends meet financially. According to the 2020
Early Childhood Workforce Index, the wages of child care
educators are only considered livable wages in 10 of the 50
states. How much longer will we force early childhood educators
to remain consistent in the lives of the children in their
care, to continuously display and maintain a focus on the
growth and development of the children in their care, all while
shouldering the weight of worrying about their own family's
survival because they are making such low compensation?
Child care in centers and homes can also be a critical component to
reverse the effects of trauma in children's early years. The ACE's
(Adverse Childhood Experiences Study) conducted by the CDC showed that
children experiencing early childhood trauma are much more likely to
face social, physical and mental health problems. The Center for the
Developing Child at Harvard states, ``the single most common factor for
children who develop resilience is at least one stable and committed
relationship with a supportive parent, caregiver or another adult.''
This relationship has the potential to reverse the negative effects of
childhood trauma and promote resilience to overcome that adversity and
persevere. Early Head Start and Head Start are also both excellent
programs to invest in as they offer the wrap around supports that so
many vulnerable children and families need to move from surviving to
thriving.
Over my many years in the field, I have also seen how the
relationship between teachers and families have reduced families'
feelings of isolation, and increased their confidence in their own
skills as parents. For the past 6 years, we have offered an annual,
evidence-based program called the Incredible Years. This 14 week
parenting group is designed to prevent and treat young children's
behavior problems and promote their social, emotional and academic
competence. This program has built community amongst families, and
supported parent's development of skills to promote their child's
positive growth and development.
Supporting our early educators with specialized social-emotional
training, connection to services such as mental health consultation,
Early Intervention, as well as supportive supervision is critical for
supporting children experiencing trauma. Supporting parents and
guardians in gaining new skills to promote healthy social and emotional
development is an important component in reducing the risk of children
experiencing ongoing trauma. Last, funding early education in a way
that allows our educators to make living wages so that they can focus
on the important roles that they play in the lives of children and
families without the worry about their own families suffering and
struggling to survive is crucial.
______
[Whereupon, at 11:54 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[all]