    [Senate Hearing 117-372]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                            S. Hrg. 117-372

           THE ROLE OF CHILDCARE IN AN EQUITABLE POSTPANDEMIC ECONOMY

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                                SUBCOMMITTEE ON
                                ECONOMIC POLICY

                                     of the

                                  COMMITTEE ON
                       BANKING,HOUSING,AND URBAN AFFAIRS
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                        ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                       ON

      EXAMINING CHILDCARE AS A CRITICAL PART OF HOW OUR ECONOMIC RECOVERY
          PLAYS OUT AND WHAT OUR ECONOMY WILL LOOK LIKE GOING FORWARD

                                   __________

                                 JUNE 23, 2021

                                   __________

      Printed for the use of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban
                                    Affairs

                      [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                    Available at: https: //www.govinfo.gov /

                                     ______

                     U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

    48-667 PDF                WASHINGTON : 2022

                COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS

                         SHERROD BROWN, Ohio, Chairman

    JACK REED, Rhode Island              PATRICK J. TOOMEY, Pennsylvania
    ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey          RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama
    JON TESTER, Montana                  MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
    MARK R. WARNER, Virginia             TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
    ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts      MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota
    CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland           THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
    CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada       JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
    TINA SMITH, Minnesota                BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee
    KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona              CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming
    JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  JERRY MORAN, Kansas
    RAPHAEL WARNOCK, Georgia             KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
                                         STEVE DAINES, Montana

                         Laura Swanson, Staff Director

                     Brad Grantz, Republican Staff Director

                          Cameron Ricker, Chief Clerk

                          Shelvin Simmons, IT Director

                        Charles J. Moffat, Hearing Clerk

                                     ______

                        Subcommittee on Economic Policy

                     ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts, Chair

               JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana, Ranking Republican Member

    JACK REED, Rhode Island              TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
    CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland           THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
    TINA SMITH, Minnesota                KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
    JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  STEVE DAINES, Montana

                  Gabrielle Elul, Subcommittee Staff Director

             Natalia Riggin, Republican Subcommittee Staff Director

                                      (ii)

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                            THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2021

                                                                       Page

    Opening statement of Chair Warren................................     1

                                   WITNESSES

    Fatima Goss Graves, President and CEO, National Women's Law
      Center.........................................................     3
        Prepared statement...........................................    27
    Betsey Stevenson, Professor of Public Policy and Economics,
      Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.........................     4
        Prepared statement...........................................    34
    Bernadette Ngoh, Founder, Trusted Care Family Day Care Home......     6
        Prepared statement...........................................    37
    Rachel Greszler, Research Fellow in Economics, Budget and
      Entitlements, The Heritage Foundation..........................     7
        Prepared statement...........................................    40
        Responses to written questions of:
            Senator Kennedy..........................................    62
    Abby M. McCloskey, Founder and Principal, McCloskey Policy, LLC..     9
        Prepared statement...........................................    55
        Responses to written questions of:
            Senator Kennedy..........................................    66

                                     (iii)

           THE ROLE OF CHILDCARE IN AN EQUITABLE POSTPANDEMIC ECONOMY

                                  ----------

                            THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2021

                                           U.S. Senate,
             Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs,
                               Subcommittee on Economic Policy,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Committee met at 2:32 p.m., via Webex and in room SD-
    538, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Elizabeth Warren,
    Chair of the Subcommittee, presiding.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIR ELIZABETH WARREN

        Chair Warren. Good afternoon, everyone.
        I want to welcome my colleagues and all of our witnesses to
    this hearing of the Banking Committee's Economic Policy
    Subcommittee.
        I want to thank Senator Kennedy for working with me and my
    staff to make this a successful hearing.
        I believe that this may be the first hearing about
    childcare in the history of the Banking Committee. But really,
    this should not be surprising. We are here to talk about our
    economy and economic recovery, and childcare is a critical part
    of how our economic recovery plays out and what our economy
    will look like going forward.
        As we look ahead to our postpandemic economy, childcare is
    essential for helping parents get back to work. A national
    survey found that nearly 20 percent of working parents left the
    workforce or reduced their hours solely due to a lack of
    childcare. And 26 percent of women who became unemployed during
    the pandemic attributed this to a lack of childcare.
        In order for parents to return to work, they need safe,
    reliable and affordable childcare. Without it, many parents
    will find that they are struggling to interview for jobs, let
    alone to hold down a job or advance their careers. A strong
    economic recovery depends on solving this problem.
        High-quality childcare and early learning is about parents'
    jobs. But it is also about early learning for children. A
    mountain of evidence shows that high-quality early learning
    supports important brain development, helps children get ready
    for school, and leads to higher earnings and better outcomes
    throughout a child's life. For every dollar we invest in high-
    quality early childhood programs study after study shows that
    we get a return of somewhere between $4 and $9 back on down the
    line.
        New research has found that spending on programs that
    support children's health and well-being reduce medical costs,
    improve college attendance, and lead to higher earnings and
    higher tax payments. In other words, these programs pay for
    themselves by the time the children become adults. This is not
    just a nice thing to do. It is a smart investment that will
    yield returns for our country's future.
        And finally, we need to address the fact that childcare
    providers are seriously underpaid. Today, childcare workers
    earn an average of just $12 an hour. Childcare providers are
    some of our Nation's most important early teachers but our
    Nation has undervalued the work they do for far too long.
        Ninety-five percent of childcare providers are women and
    they are disproportionately women of color. Ensuring that
    childcare jobs are good jobs, with fair pay and benefits, and
    that jobs that will support families while doing this essential
    work, will permit childcare workers to stay in the field, to
    buildup expertise, and to improve the care they offer to our
    children.
        For generations, we have told parents that when it comes to
    finding quality, affordable childcare they are on their own.
    That is bad for parents, bad for babies, and bad for childcare
    workers. There is a reason that childcare was front and center
    in President Biden's American Families Plan. This is critical
    infrastructure that makes all other work possible.
        I am very concerned about the bipartisan framework released
    last week that did not include a word, not one word, about
    childcare. An infrastructure plan that does not include
    childcare does not address the challenges facing families in
    Massachusetts or anywhere else around the country.
        Now is not the time to abandon what President Biden has
    proposed. Now is the time to expand it.
        I am fighting for a $700 billion Federal investment to make
    sure that every single family who needs it can find safe,
    affordable childcare. That is good for parents, it is good for
    children, it is good for providers, and it is good for our
    whole economy.
        So that is why we are here today, to understand the problem
    and to figure out how to address the challenges facing families
    and build a stronger economy that works for all of us.
        Our first witness, Fatima Goss Graves, is the President and
    CEO of the National Women's Law Center, where she has spent her
    career fighting to advance opportunities for women and girls.
        Next, we will hear from Dr. Betsey Stevenson, a Professor
    of Public Policy and Economics at the University of Michigan.
    Dr. Stevenson has served on the Council of Economic Advisors as
    an advisor on social policy and labor market issues and as
    Chief Economist at the Department of Labor.
        We are lucky to be joined today by Bernadette Ngoh, a
    founder of Trusted Care, a family childcare program in West
    Haven, Connecticut. As a family childcare provider, Ms. Ngoh
    operates her program 24 hours a day--think about that--and is
    committed to quality, equity, accessability, and community
    support.
        After Ms. Ngoh, we will hear from Abby McCloskey, the
    Founder and Principal of McCloskey Policy, LLC, a research and
    consulting firm serving businesses and political leaders across
    the country.
        And finally, we are joined by Rachel Greszler, a Research
    Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, whose work focuses on
    retirement and labor policies as well as workplace and family
    issues.
        The pandemic has exposed the challenges that have faced
    working families and childcare providers for decades. We have
    an historic opportunity right now to make sure that every
    family that needs it can find and afford childcare, and that
    every childcare provider earns a living wage with good
    benefits.
        So I want to thank all of our witnesses for joining us
    today. I look forward to hearing your testimony.
        There is going to be a vote at three o'clock. I am going to
    step out during that vote and Senator Smith is going to take
    over the gavel and run the hearing while I vote.
        And with that, I would like to start with Ms. Goss Graves
    and recognize you for 5 minutes for your testimony, please.

     STATEMENT OF FATIMA GOSS GRAVES, PRESIDENT AND CEO, NATIONAL
                           WOMEN'S LAW CENTER

        Ms. Goss Graves. Well good afternoon, Chair Warren and
    Ranking Member Kennedy and all of the distinguished members of
    the Subcommittee.
        My name is Fatima Goss Graves, and I am President and CEO
    at the National Women's Law Center. For both Chair Warren and
    Senator Smith, we are so grateful for your leadership on
    childcare. And we are grateful to Congress for the American
    Rescue Plan and the 2020 COVID relief packages which together
    provided a $50 billion amount in relief funding that saved the
    childcare sector from collapse. But we can make no mistake, the
    investment in childcare cannot end there.
        For the childcare and early learning sector, the pandemic
    has really laid bare and really exacerbated deep inequities in
    our childcare system that have long been baked-in, that
    families are required to pay sums that are unaffordable, that
    early educators are being paid poverty-level wages, and too
    many communities across the country are faced with situations
    where there are not enough childcare workers and there are
    insufficient facilities to support the demand.
        Since the start of the pandemic, the decline in mother's
    labor force participation have been nearly double that of
    fathers. Research shows that COVID has led mothers of young
    children in particular to reduce their work hours by as many as
    four to five times more than fathers.
        And while these numbers are cause for alarm, what is
    actually more surprising, I think, is we are not seeing an even
    larger reduction in labor force participation yet. And that is
    because throughout history mothers have found workarounds.
    Workarounds by accepting jobs that pay lower wages. Workarounds
    by putting off educational opportunities, opportunities to grow
    in their careers and to provide for their family, foregoing
    other necessities for their families and for themselves because
    the cost of childcare eats up a third or more of their income,
    all while working themselves to the bone to care for their
    families.
        And as parents are desperately seeking childcare in this
    moment, we risk not only undermining employment, undermining
    economic growth in this country, but also undermining
    children's long-term development.
        When we invest in children starting at birth it yields
    long-term positive outcomes for their health, for their
    education options, for their employment options. And from birth
    to age three, we know that children's brains are making more
    than 1 million neural connections per second. And that is
    influenced greatly by caregivers.
        So what we need is universal and reliable and affordable
    high-quality childcare so that all parents, but also the mostly
    women and women in color in particular who have been barely
    hanging on in this pandemic can get and can keep jobs, and that
    the workers, the mostly women workforce, the mostly women of
    color workforce, can do the critical work of care that we all
    value so much for pay that actually matches that work.
        We are seeking and think we need a $700 billion investment
    in directly spending to ensure that we can meet this moment.
    Meet a moment that no family would pay more than 7 percent of
    their income, so that childcare providers can be paid on parity
    with kindergarten teachers, and that there can be more
    childcare slots available for families in this country, and
    that we can get 2.3 million good paying jobs nearly all of
    which would be held likely by women.
        And this investment will also enable parents, and
    especially mothers, to participate in the labor force and have
    greater financial security.
        We have a new study out with Columbia University that shows
    that increasing the number of women with young children working
    full time, increasing this investment would increase the number
    of women with young children working full time by 17 percent.
    And for women without a college degree, it is 31 percent.
        So I will just conclude with just a couple of final
    thoughts, and that is pre-COVID our status quo was
    unsustainable. We knew that. It was unsustainable. It left
    families behind. It left women workers in a bind. We can do the
    work that demonstrates that childcare is infrastructure in this
    country.
        Thank you so much for having me and I look forward to any
    questions.
        Senator Warren. Thank you very much, Ms. Goss Graves. That
    is very helpful.
        Dr. Stevenson is joining us by Webex. You are recognized
    for 5 minutes.
        [Pause.]
        Chair Warren. There is that long pause. Dr. Stevenson, are
    you there?

     STATEMENT OF BETSEY STEVENSON, PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY AND
     ECONOMICS, GERALD R. FORD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY, UNIVERSITY
                              OF MICHIGAN

        Ms. Stevenson. I am. Thank you, very much.
        Thank you for the invitation to speak today about
    childcare. I an economist who has spent much of the past three
    decades trying to better understand women's employment,
    American families, and the porous boundaries between our
    personal lives and our work lives. These porous boundaries were
    completely shredded during the pandemic as tens of millions of
    people began to work from home for the first time along with
    their children who lost access to in-person school and
    childcare.
        My research has shown that policy choices shape the
    constraints that people face and therefore their employment and
    family decisions. The choices you make now about childcare will
    shape the U.S. macroeconomy for decades to come by influencing
    who returns to work, what types of jobs parents take, and what
    kinds of promotion paths parents are able to access.
        It is not just women, men's employment choices are also
    shaped by access to childcare. In 2014, a survey found that 49
    percent of parents said that at some point they had passed up a
    job because it conflicted with family obligations.
        In a recent survey that I have been running just over the
    past month in conjunction with RIWI, we found that childcare
    responsibilities during the COVID-19 crisis impacted the
    employment of 59 percent of parents. Only 41 percent of parents
    said childcare had not affected their job.
        Many cut their work hours, turned down promotions, changed
    jobs for more flexibility, paused training or education, or
    quit jobs entirely. These impacts were reported by men and
    women almost in equal number, a fact that reflects the shift
    toward greater, although not complete, equality in the home.
        Let me emphasize that the pandemic did highlight that women
    continue to bear disproportionate responsibility for care
    giving within families and the COVID crisis impacted women more
    than men in many ways.
        The first factor was the nature of the recession itself.
    This was our very first ever service sector driven recession.
    Between February 2020 and May 2020, women lost 13 million jobs
    compared to 9 million jobs lost by men. However, over the last
    several months of recovery the gap has been reversing as jobs
    for women have been expanded faster than those by men. This is
    important because it points to the role that women are playing
    in the economy and how essential they are.
        The second factor was, of course, the closing of schools
    and childcare. More than two-thirds of children live in
    households in which all parents work. The pandemic made salient
    the many roles that schools play. K-12 education is typically
    thought of as a source of education for children and an
    investment in the next generation. It is. It is also a source
    of childcare for many families who are able to work for pay
    during the roughly 6 hours that their children are being taught
    and cared for by professional educators provided for through
    their tax dollars.
        Childcare for younger children serves a very similar dual
    purpose. Early childhood educators can improve outcomes for
    children by engaging in developmentally appropriate curriculum-
    based activities. They also provide crucial care for children
    in households in which all parents work.
        The third factor is related to changes in family life. And
    I really want to highlight this because it is often overlooked.
    Mothers of young children were more likely to be in the labor
    force at the time of the pandemic than in any time in the past.
    In 2019, mothers of children 6 years old and younger had the
    highest labor force participation from any period in history.
        These challenges that women faced highlight our failure to
    adapt childcare, workplace flexibility, and workplace parental
    leave policies as women have entered the workforce and gained
    experience, training, and education that has made them an
    essential part of the economy. Women are no longer the
    secondary earners as economists used to refer to them, able to
    step back from work whenever the household demanded it. Today,
    more than 40 percent of mothers are the primary earner for
    their family, earning at least half of total household income.
        I want to highlight in my last few minutes just really the
    important role that childcare plays. Childcare and education
    has more in common to the banking system then you may suspect.
    It is the backbone of our future economy because it invests in
    and develops our human capital. While women have done this
    labor for no or little pay, do not underestimate its value.
    Human talent to these investments and its ultimately human
    ingenuity that fuels our economic growth.
        Early childhood education does three things: it provides
    childcare that allows parents to work, thereby raising
    household income. It develops skills in children that lead to
    higher lifetime earnings. And it supports the equal investments
    in children necessary for a competitive market economy to reach
    its potential.
        Thank you.
        Chair Warren. Thank very much, Dr. Stevenson. I appreciate
    your being here.
        And now, Ms. Ngoh, you are recognized for 5 minutes for
    your testimony.

    STATEMENT OF BERNADETTE NGOH, FOUNDER, TRUSTED CARE FAMILY DAY
                               CARE HOME

        Ms. Ngoh. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you
    today.
        I am Bernadette Akum Ngoh. I own a childcare program in
    Connecticut. My program runs 24 hours to take care of the
    varied needs of workers, parents.
        I was raised in Cameroon by a single mom who had little
    education but wanted me to go to school, wanted me to learn.
    And that helped me along the line to acquire education.
        I did go to school, just like we are looking forward to our
    kids to go to school. I earned a degree in law, I earned a
    degree and postgraduate diploma in women's law. I earned a
    degree in counseling and an MBA.
        What does this tell me? That early childhood education is
    very important today, tomorrow, and forever. If we have to
    change our economy, we have to invest in early childhood
    education.
        Before 2010, I used to be an Adjunct Professor at the
    University of Bridgeport here in Connecticut. I had the
    opportunity to teach older kids. But when I had my own kids, I
    had to switch lanes and decided to teach young kids. I saw
    something that needs to be done.
        If we do not invest, if we do not bank in our kids, then we
    are creating a problem down the line. Entrusting our kids with
    what they need for the future is like doing something we call
    prevention is better than cure. Everything that the kids need
    at this age is very helpful because it will take down the costs
    of every other thing that when we grow older we will need.
        So investing in early childhood, to me, is very, very
    crucial.
        I want to emphasize one thing, that early childhood
    education, daycare in particular, helps everybody. The
    multiplier effect of me keeping that child and the mom going
    out there to work will have a longer lasting benefit to the
    economy as a whole. It is very important for us to realize
    that.
        The impact of early childhood does not only end with the
    kid that we are taking care of, the parents, but it also
    affects the general economy. If I do not take care of the kids,
    you will not be there working.
        The Senators would not be doing their job. The doctors
    would not be doing their job. So the effect of that has a
    multiplier effect everywhere within our economy now and in the
    future.
        Before the pandemic hit, it was tough being a daycare
    provider. The pandemic hit us so hard. Unfortunately, we were
    quarantined twice. How did that affect our program? We had to
    close down. How did that affect other workers? They were unable
    to go out and work for several--for about 2 weeks, if not more,
    because of what was going on.
        I am submitting that daycare is very, very important. Our
    country has a childcare problem that needs to be resolved. If
    we do not pay attention to the crisis that childcare is facing,
    that problem is going to multiply down the line. If we are
    growing the next generations of presidents, CEOs, engineers,
    and doctors, we need to give them what they need at this age
    because this age is the time that we build the foundation.
        If we fail to build the foundation properly, then what we
    are leaving out there will be disastrous. It is easier to
    repair the structure up there and it is very difficult and
    costly to repair the foundation. Childcare, education, we build
    the foundation. We build the brains of the kids that we care
    for and we need to be reward as such.
        We do not only build the brains of the kids that we take
    care of, we do much more than that. We listen to their parents
    when they share their challenges back at home, when they share
    their challenges back at work. We have all of this going on
    within our daycare program and the remunerations we get are far
    less than what we put out there in terms of services, in terms
    of the quality, and our skills.
        So I am proposing that we pass this bill to be able to fund
    childcare programs.
        Thank you.
        Senator Warren. Thank you, Ms. Ngoh. I very much appreciate
    your being here.
        Ms. Greszler, you are now recognized by Webex for 5
    minutes.

      STATEMENT OF RACHEL GRESZLER, RESEARCH FELLOW IN ECONOMICS,
            BUDGET AND ENTITLEMENTS, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION

        Ms. Greszler. Good afternoon, and thank you for the
    opportunity to be here today.
        As a wife and a mom of six young kids ranging in age from 3
    to 12, I have spent the last 13 years navigating the same thing
    that millions of parents have done and facing the decisions to
    determine what work and childcare is best for them.
        If there is one thing that I have learned, it is that there
    is no single work-family balance nor childcare setting that is
    best for everyone. These decisions are not easy and I know I
    continually question whether we are doing the right thing. Only
    through the ability to carve my own pathway and achieve a
    flexible balance have I become more comfortable and confident
    in the choices that we have made.
        Families need to be free to pursue what is best for them
    and not what politicians, Government programs, or societal
    norms tell them to do. I am actually optimistic that the
    changes brought on by the pandemic could benefit families
    through more flexible and accommodating work options.
        Women have already overcome what were initially
    disproportionate employment impacts and a recent study actually
    found that childcare struggles is no longer weighing on
    employment declines. That means that heavily subsidized
    childcare and universal pre-K will not solve the current
    employment problems. But they would push more parents into the
    workforce. And that is one of their goals, to prevent parents
    from having to give up income in order to stay home with kids.
        Allegedly, Government programs are great for kids,
    producing seven for one returns. But are politicians really
    telling me that my children's future value to society will be
    multitudes higher if other people pay for my children to attend
    full-time Government directed childcare and if I or my husband
    give up some income to stay home with them, or if we choose any
    other combination of non-Government childcare?
        It is wrong to discount the enormous value of parents
    investing time in their children. And moreover, there is
    actually zero evidence that large scale Government programs
    could mimic the high returns of tiny boutique programs that
    serve disadvantaged children a half century ago.
        Present day programs like Head Start and Tennessee's
    voluntary pre-K program have provided little or no lasting
    gains and they have had some consequences. Moreover, only 18
    percent of families prefer to have both parents working and
    their kids attending paid childcare. And those families are
    disproportionately wealthy and affluent.
        Nudging families away from their preferences could
    backfire, as Quebec $5 per day subsidized childcare program
    showed. It did increase work among young moms and it shifted a
    lot of kids from family care to Government care. But
    researchers found striking evidence that children's health and
    behaviors were worse off. They had higher crime rates as
    teenagers, and families experienced more hostility and less
    consistent parenting.
        There is also the reality that Government childcare will
    drive up costs and limit choices. Requirements like extremely
    low child-to-teacher ratios and college degrees for childcare
    providers are a big reason behind D.C. $43,000 price tag for
    two kids attending childcare.
        Small family and religious providers are usually less
    expensive and more flexible but Government subsidies and
    directives could actually crowd them out. Already, onerous
    Government regulations contributed to a 52 percent decline in
    the number of small family providers since 2005.
        And while childcare is inherently expensive, there are ways
    that policymakers can help families obtain the care they need
    at a cost they can afford. My written testimony provides more
    details but some helpful actions include letting families keep
    more of their own money. Reducing regulations that do not
    contribute to improved quality and safety. Giving parents more
    choices with the public childcare programs that are out there.
    Eliminating barriers to employer-provided childcare. Letting
    workers choose to be independent workers. And enabling more
    flexible childcare settings.
        For example, Head Start costs as much as full-time
    childcare but often only provides half as many hours. Families
    should be able to take that money to a provider that works
    better for them.
        If I watch my friend's kids one afternoon per week, I
    should not have to convert my home into a licensed childcare
    facility. If a couple of moms want to form a co-op, they should
    not have to become employees and employers of one another.
        And daycare should not have to throw out expensive
    materials when a simple duct tape fix would do the trick. But
    apparently duct tape harbors germs so it is not allowed.
        Caring for children is something that humans have done
    since the dawn of time. And childcare is not unique to COVID-19
    or even to 21st century America. But as more Americans desire
    increasingly flexible work, easing childcare restrictions could
    help more families meet their desires.
        The solution to a more equitable economy is to empower
    parents instead of politicians to make the choices that are
    best for them.
        Thank you.
        Senator Smith [presiding]. Thank you very much, and we will
    now hear from Ms. Abby McCloskey, who will be joining us via
    Webex.

        STATEMENT OF ABBY M. MCCLOSKEY, FOUNDER AND PRINCIPAL,
                          MCCLOSKEY POLICY LLC

        Ms. McCloskey. Thank you, Senator.
        Chair Warren, Ranking Member Kennedy, and members of the
    Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
        The nature of work and family has changed significantly in
    recent decades. The majority of parents of young children are
    now in the labor force, and mothers are the primary breadwinner
    in 40 percent of families. This has created tensions around
    work and care that both the Government and markets have failed
    to adequately address.
        Most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic revealed just how
    intertwined care is with the economy, providing a unique
    opportunity to rethink the childcare landscape. As policymakers
    weigh new reforms, I would like to put forward five principles
    to target our childcare investment.
        Number one, the benefits of early childhood programs are
    most pronounced for disadvantaged families. We should focus our
    efforts here. Nobel Prize winning economist James Heckman has
    found a 7 to 13 percent annual return on early childhood
    development programs for disadvantaged children. Moreover, the
    children of those who attended such programs also have
    exhibited improved economic outcomes. This suggests that
    targeted investment in early childhood care could improve
    intergenerational upward mobility for at-risk communities.
        In contrast, research on broader programs such as universal
    childcare and universal pre-K is mixed, with some studies
    showing positive effects and other showing fading or negative
    ones. More research is needed before justifying universal
    programs.
        Number two, we should increase parents' choices for care
    providers. Childcare needs and values vary widely. As such,
    policymakers should seek to create more options for care,
    rather than one-size-fits-all public programs. This could be
    done through the existing Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit
    which, in essence, is a school choice program for early
    childhood care. Parents can use the credit to send their
    children to center-based care, in-home care, a church program,
    preschool, a language program, all of which could be full-time,
    part-time, or something in between.
        This would allow for proliferation of different kinds of
    care providers in response to what parents want instead of in
    response to what Washington wants. Making the credit refundable
    would benefit low-income households for whom childcare is a
    barrier to work and high-quality care options are most out of
    reach.
        Number three, we need to account for existing programs and
    make sure that new spending is paid for. The Federal debt is at
    historic levels and that is before any infrastructure package.
    We must be judicious with our spending priorities and pay-fors.
    We are not starting from scratch in the childcare space. New
    programs should seek to rationalize existing landscape of
    Government programs and subsidies to reduce waste and overlap.
        Additionally, new programs should be accompanied by a
    review of existing spending instead of relying wholly on higher
    taxes. This spending review should be comprehensive and not
    limited to existing childcare programs. This is because in the
    next decade, Federal spending on adults over the age of 65 will
    grow to more than half of all spending, while the share of
    spending on children will shrink to 7 percent.
        Number four, we should make it easier for parents to spend
    time with infants. While much of the discussion on childcare
    focuses on care outside the home, care inside the home from
    parents if vitally important. Yet, the status quo makes it very
    difficult for parents to spend this critical time with their
    children even in the early weeks of life. One study has found
    that one in four women return to work within 2 weeks of giving
    birth.
        A Federal paid parental leave policy would change this and
    is associated with reduced rates of neonatal fatalities,
    increased involvement from fathers, and higher wages and
    reduced reliance on welfare for mothers. Unlike broader paid
    leave packages, its cost is modest and contained. Boosting
    wages for parents through economic growth and Earned Income Tax
    Credit also would provide more flexibility to be at home if
    that is what they chose to do.
        Number five, we should seek to bring down the costs of
    care. One contributor to high childcare costs is the decline in
    the supply of providers and, in particular, in-home providers.
    This is, in part, due to burdensome regulation. A care package
    should include Federal incentives for States to review and
    streamline their childcare regulations wherever possible. We
    should seek to increase the number of care providers and
    opportunities for their career advancement in a way that is
    sustainable.
        For example, multiple States have begun to implement
    apprenticeship programs for early childhood educators,
    providing them for opportunities for increased skills and
    higher pay. These efforts have been supported by the Trump
    White House, by the Center for American Program, and by the
    Bipartisan Policy Center. We should seek to expand these
    efforts.
        Having worked with leaders across the political spectrum in
    my career, I am convinced that there are targeted reforms that
    would deliver significant benefits for American families and to
    the economy.
        Thank you for the opportunity to testify and I look forward
    to our discussion.
        Senator Smith. Thank you, very much.
        I want to thank all of our panelists for your testimony and
    I am going to now recognize myself for 5 minutes of questioning
    while Senator Warren is voting.
        So I start from the place that childcare is a family and an
    economic imperative. And I think that today's hearing is so
    important, and I thank my great colleague Chair Warren for
    holding it. Because I do not think our economy will work, nor
    will it return to normal, if we do not have safe, high-quality
    childcare and early education options. And I think that we know
    that high-quality early education closes opportunity gaps for
    children. This is what we know.
        This is, of course, as several of you have pointed out,
    this is about equity for children and families.
        I have learned from speaking with childcare providers and
    early education providers across the gamut in Minnesota that
    the whole business model for childcare and early learning in
    our country is just not working. It is not working for
    families, for businesses, for providers themselves who often
    describe this work as a labor of love and certainly not the
    place where they are making a lot of money. And it is not
    working for the vast majority of the providers themselves who,
    as has been pointed out, are most often women and women of
    color.
        So let me just ask a couple of questions on this topic. I
    am going to start with Ms. Goss Graves, if I may. You
    mentioned, in your testimony, that childcare is infrastructure.
    And this, of course, the word infrastructure has been thrown
    around a lot over the last couple of months here in Washington.
    I have joined Chair Warren and several of my colleagues in
    urging big investments in childcare because I agree that
    childcare is the work that makes all other work possible.
        But could you just say a little bit more, Ms. Goss Graves,
    about what does it mean to you when you say that childcare is
    infrastructure? And what do you say to those who say that
    infrastructure is really just about roads and bridges and
    broadband? Not that that is not important, too.
        Ms. Goss Graves. I actually think when you think about
    roads infrastructure, broadband, you understand why childcare
    is infrastructure. Childcare is the care and the work that
    makes all other work possible. It is something that connects
    families with jobs. And it is the work that ensures that entire
    sectors can actually work.
        And one of the reasons it was so fragile going into the
    pandemic and we watched it basically collapse is because we
    have been treating it too much like an individual problem. But
    if we actually invest over the long term like it is
    infrastructure, like it is a public good foundational for our
    economy and our families, then we have an opportunity for
    something very difficult going forward.
        Senator Smith. I think the infrastructure word sometimes
    sounds kind of hard and impersonal but it gets, in my mind,
    exactly at what you are talking about which is the fundamental
    pieces that we need in place for families to work, for
    businesses to work, for our economy to work.
        And I will tell you, this is what I hear also from business
    owners in Minnesota, especially in many rural parts of my
    State, where there is such a shortage of childcare and
    therefore a real challenge with fathers and mothers being able
    to work. And to be clear, they work because they have to work,
    because that is how they pay the bills.
        Let me ask a question, if I could, of Professor Stevenson.
    In February of 2021, the Minneapolis Fed reported that labor
    force participation among moms of young children had dropped 11
    percent due to the pandemic. And what the Fed found was that
    early on moms and dads left the workforce to care for their
    kids at home at roughly equal levels. But while nearly all dads
    went back to work, too often moms were not able to.
        So Dr. Stevenson, could I ask you what does it mean for our
    economy and for our society in general when women are pushed
    out of the labor force because of a lack of access to
    childcare?
        Ms. Stevenson. Yes, thank you for that question.
        We know that a lot of women were pushed to make a choice
    that is different than what they would have made because they
    did not have any other options.
        Women have been getting more education than men and have
    closed experience gaps with men. What this means is that they
    are fundamental to our economy. They are some of our most
    experienced, talented workers. And when they stay home, we lose
    that. They lose the opportunity to have their career continue
    to develop.
        One of my biggest concerns is that even as their children
    grow, we will have a hard time reintegrating women back into
    the labor force.
        If you look since the last recession, the 2008 recession,
    two-thirds of the job growth went to women. So women have been
    driving--if you think back to that, what we called sort of the
    miracle 10 years of growth where month-after-month employers
    tired to hire more people, and we though ultimately they are
    going to run out of people, right? That is why the Fed started
    to pull back to early. But women responded to the call and they
    entered the labor force at higher rates.
        The Kansas City Fed also found that women led the
    resurgence in prime age labor force that occurred between 2015
    and 2019. So if you think about where we were in 2019, if we
    had women stay back, if they had not led that growth, we would
    not have had much of the growth we had between 2015 and 2019.
        To put that in perspective, what a lot of people talk
    about, was it the tax cuts? Was it regulation? What helped us
    grow between 2010 and 2019? It was women.
        Senator Smith. Thank you very much.
        I am over my time but I am going to ask one more question
    to give Senator Warnock a chance to get settled in before I
    turn to him.
        I would like to ask a question of Ms. Ngoh, if I may.
        I really appreciate you sharing your experience. I so value
    hearing from people are doing the work on the ground, as you
    are. And I am so amazed how you can organize your effort for 24
    hours a day. That is incredible.
        I have introduced legislation called the Child Care Supply
    Improvement Act, which is specifically designed to help smaller
    childcare providers. I am very excited about this legislation
    and I am glad to have the support of Senators Warren and Wyden
    and Brown and Casey.
        What the bill would do is to permanently increase annual
    funding for the Child Care Entitlement to States to $10 billion
    and also invest $5 billion per year to help improve childcare
    supply and quality and affordability.
        So Ms. Ngoh, could you just take a minute to tell us,
    before I turn to Senator Warnock, when you were starting up
    your organization, what obstacles did you face getting started?
    And how can we help people like you, who are interested in
    doing this work, how can we help you better get started?
        Ms. Ngoh. When I was starting my business, I faced a lot of
    obstacles, not limited to what I am going to say. No trainings,
    I needed trainings to be more able to reach out to meet the
    needs of the kids. I needed equipment. I needed help with
    licensing. How can I get licensed? And how can I get support
    for that to be done? I needed some type of grants to be able to
    buy some of the basic tools and equipment and toys that I need
    for my daycare.
        I needed help with trying to make my premises helpful? For
    example, if I had lead in the house, I was told they had to
    come and check if you had lead in the house. And that is so
    much money for that to be done.
        You want to be sure that plumbing is good, lighting is
    good. You want to be sure that everything that regulation
    requires, you meet it. If you do not meet the standards stated
    by licensing, then you cannot start your daycare program. What
    we will need is funding to help us with that.
        So those obstacles were there, but I see great improvement
    with all these programs. Thank you.
        Senator Smith. Thank you so much, I so appreciate it.
        I am going to hand the gavel back to Senator Warren so I
    can go vote, and I believe Senator Warnock might be next.
        Chair Warren [presiding]. Thank you, very much.
        Thank you, Senator Smith. I appreciate your taking over the
    duties of the presiding officer.
        Senator Warnock, you are recognized to ask your questions.
        Senator Warnock. Thank you so much, Chair Warren, for
    organizing this conversation about childcare and equitable
    postpandemic economies.
        Even both the coronavirus pandemic, the childcare industry
    faced unique challenges. Childcare was not affordable for many
    families. At the same time, childcare workers were underpaid.
        In 2020, childcare work ranked among the bottom 2 percent
    by salary before the pandemic, with educators with all of their
    training making just over $12 an hour. In Georgia, workers in
    unsubsidized centers earned an average of $10.14 an hour.
    People who were taking care of our children and educating them.
        These challenges disproportionately affect women,
    particularly Black and Brown women, who make up the bulk of the
    childcare workforce. During the pandemic, childcare providers
    faced record low enrollment, forcing providers to reduce costs
    by paying even lower wages or laying off the staff.
        Ms. Graves, can you talk about the importance of paying
    early educators, who are educating our children during that
    critical time of brain development, a livable wage and the
    impact that this will have on our ability to fill these
    critical jobs with well-qualified people?
        Ms. Goss Graves. So thank you, Senator Warnock, for that
    question.
        I think it is one of our Nation's travesties, the wages
    that childcare workers are paid. And what it means is that we
    are fixing the problem of childcare by basically making a
    largely Black and Brown women workforce bear the brunt and the
    cost of it.
        The solution really is to pay them parity to what we
    already pay elementary kindergarten teachers. So we already
    know and have an understanding of what it looks like to pay
    them fairly. And we are all hurting from it. It is not just the
    workers and their families. We are all hurting from it because
    it means that that workforce is less stable. And as there is a
    surge of people trying to return to work and needing more
    childcare, they are struggling to have enough workers who are
    willing to work there for poverty wages when there may be an
    opportunity to work for a few dollars an hour more somewhere
    else.
        Senator Warnock. Right.
        And Ms. Ngoh, in your experience as an unsubsidized
    childcare provider, what would Federal investments in childcare
    do for your center? How would that improve the service you
    offer to children? The kind of talent you are able to attract?
    And the support you can provide for these families?
        Ms. Ngoh. Thank you so much.
        Childcare is very important in our community. What I am
    looking at is what is childcare? And maybe, if we understand
    the job we do, the job I do as a childcare provider, we will be
    able to look at the remuneration and see and ask and solve the
    question is that remuneration up to what we do, what we offer?
        As a family childcare provider, I am building, I am
    constructing the brains of kids just like infrastructure. We
    build. So every single day, what are we doing? We are building
    the brains of early kids, trying to make sure that by the time
    they become of age they are ready.
        What do we do? We support them as they grow. We support
    their physical development. We support the creative
    development, we support their cognitive development, we support
    their social and emotional development.
        We are building the foundation for the kids that will be
    here tomorrow to run our Nation. We are building the foundation
    for our Nation.
        If we fail to build this foundation correctly, what are we
    going to produce? We are going to produce leaders that are not
    capable of doing the job tomorrow.
        So like I indicated earlier, if we have funding, we will be
    able to do our job properly. What are we going to do? We will
    be able to provide them with quality education. We will be able
    to help them understand the things that they need to do at this
    age.
        I watch kids that are between the ages of 6 weeks up to the
    ages of 10. At this time, I have a child that is 18 months old.
    This falls within the critical period of building the child's
    brain. If I fail to do what I need to do, sometimes because of
    lack of resources or because the parents cannot bring the kids
    to my daycare consistently because this week they cannot afford
    to pay their out-of-pocket family fees, what happens? That
    child gets services that are not sustainable. It does help the
    child. It does not help me. It does not help our economy.
        If the Government subsidizes the family childcare program,
    if they remunerate us for our skills, they remunerate us for
    our time, they remunerate us for all of the things that we do,
    we do not only watch the kids. We also listen to their parents,
    what they struggle with.
        If the Government can subsidize our programs, we will be
    able to continuously provide quality education for these young
    brains.
        Thank you.
        Senator Warnock. Thank you, Ms. Ngoh. I do not mean to
    interrupt, but I am 1 minute old and I am going to beg the
    Chair for 1 more minute.
        You mentioned the economy, and I would like to ask Dr.
    Stevenson, because I hail from the State of Georgia where the
    average family pays 60 percent of their income to cover the
    cost of childcare for two children. I have two children, two
    small preschool children so I can think about the impact that
    must have on families, 60 percent of their income to cover the
    costs of two children.
        Dr. Stevenson, if Congress invested what it should in high-
    quality childcare, how could this actually benefit the broader
    economy even for folks who do not have children? I think when
    people hear subsidies, they think that this is some kind of
    Government giveaway. But is there an argument to be made for
    how this would actually strengthen the economy?
        Ms. Stevenson. Thank you for that question.
        Absolutely, because Government subsidies for childcare will
    allow more families to afford high-quality early childhood
    education, which is exactly what you just heard, about how it
    builds brains and it makes children more productive as adults.
        Research has taken a look at why so few kids get access to
    high-quality childcare. There are a lot of different
    arrangements out there. But what drives people's choices? It is
    what they can afford.
        There is research that has found that in childcare markets,
    quality problems reflect not parents' desire but their ability
    to afford it. Parents would spend more if they could. And in
    fact, that is exactly what we see. High income parents are
    spending more. They spend a lot on early childhood education,
    on childcare and investing in their children. And that is
    creating an inequality in adulthood that then is exacerbated
    and grows and grows.
        So what we need, if we want an economy that can compete on
    a level playing field, that can get the most out of all our
    unique individual's talents, we need to invest in all of our
    children equally. And that is why subsidizing early childhood
    education will accomplish that by making sure that more
    children, the parents and the families of more children can
    afford the high-quality investments that you have been hearing
    about.
        Senator Warnock. Thank you, so much. And than you, Madame
    Chair.
        Chair Warren. Thank you. Those were important questions.
    Thank you, Senator Warnock.
        Senator Reed.
        Senator Reed. Thank you very much, Madame Chairman.
        Ms. Graves, a follow on to the question with respect to
    better pay is broader, it is collective bargaining rights. Not
    just pay but the working hours, professional training, all
    these things. Would that improve childcare in the country, in
    your view?
        Ms. Goss Graves. There is no question that the ability to
    bargain, the ability to form a union and advocate collectively
    could be transformative for care workers more broadly. One of
    the really tough things about our long history of care work is
    that they were shut out of many important parts of our labor
    laws and protections.
        And what you have seen in a few places is an opportunity
    for care workers to come together. That happened over the last
    year in California with great success, where they can bargain
    collectively for wages. So that is a thing that would also
    help.
        But the truth of the matter is we keep coming back to the
    math problem, that families really cannot afford to pay more
    and workers should not have to take less or even maintain the
    very low wages they are paid.
        Senator Reed. Thank you.
        Professor Stevenson, following on that comment by Ms.
    Graves, there is a market failure here. When you have families
    that cannot afford it, and yet the workers are significantly
    underpaid, the market is not working. So what do we have to do,
    in a couple of steps?
        Ms. Stevenson. Yes, it is absolutely a market failure. And
    it is very similar to the kinds of problems we have in K-12
    education. If we were to ask parents to out-of-pocket pay for
    100 percent of their children's education, what we would find
    is some parents simply would not be able to afford it. And that
    is--we decided long, long ago that we were going to ensure that
    children got education in primary school, that all children got
    access to education.
        What we have learned since is actually those brain
    developments start early on. And we need to be providing that
    education earlier.
        What an economist would say is what is the market failure?
    Well, it would be great if people could borrow the money they
    needed to make the investments and then pay it off over the
    course of their lifetime as they earned more as adults. That is
    exactly what taxes are. People should be getting invested in
    through tax dollars as children. And when they go to work as
    adults, they will pay it back in the taxes they pay out of
    their higher earnings from those investments.
        Senator Reed. Well, thank you.
        By the way, thank you so much for your help on work share.
    When we were developing that concept, your insights were
    incredibly useful and again, thank you.
        You may accept the encomium. I think that is the phrase.
        Ms. Stevenson. [Nodding.]
        Senator Reed. Let the record show nodding head.
        Chair Warren. I got the nodding head.
        Senator Reed. You got the nodding head. OK.
        I just want to commend Ms. Ngoh for her great work. My time
    is expiring, but thank you very much. Thank you, Madame
    Chairman. Let me thank the panel, too, and I would yield back.
        Chair Warren. Thank you, Senator Reed.
        Senator Ossoff. Thank you so much, Madame Chair. Thank you
    for convening this hearing. Thank you for your leadership on
    this issue and for working families across the country.
        And thank you for our panel, for joining us today and
    sharing your expertise.
        When I was running for the U.S. Senate and when I was
    elected, it was very clear to me that Georgia families expected
    change and they expected Congress to invest in them, in working
    families in Georgia, in improving the quality of life,
    investing in prosperity for working families in Georgia.
        And as soon as we got here, I was so pleased to join
    colleagues like the Chair and Senator Reverend Warnock to get
    to work. And that is why I am proud to be able to announce to
    the people of Georgia that because of the American Rescue Plan
    Act, which we passed into law, working Georgians who as a
    couple make $150,000 per year or less or as a single parent
    make $112,500 a year or less, will soon start to see $300
    deposited directly into their bank accounts each month for
    every child they have under the age of 6 and $250 each month
    for every child aged 6 to 17 years of age. This expansion of
    the Child Tax Credit is so important.
        And Ms. Graves, I would like to ask you, what will be the
    impact of this expanded Child Tax Credit and these monthly
    payments that families will see on the ability of families to
    take care of their kids and also to get back into the
    workforce?
        Ms. Goss Graves. So, there are many parts of the American
    Rescue Plan that brought me great joy, but the Child Tax Credit
    and that investment in our lowest income families is one that
    just made me really proud of this Congress and our country.
        A big deal that 4 million families will be moved above the
    poverty line. So when we think about children in this country,
    that we did this in the midst of a pandemic, that responded
    that with that level, of course it is really exciting.
        And going forward, I think we will have learned a lesson
    about what it means to ensure that no one falls off a cliff,
    that our families can be secure, and that our children in
    particular can grow up with that sort of safety.
        Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Graves.
        And with my remaining time, I would like to humbly invite
    each of you, beginning with you, Ms. Greszler, to offer the one
    recommendation for Congress that you think is most important
    that perhaps we have not touched upon yet in this hearing
    today.
        Ms. Greszler. I think a lot of the solution going forward,
    when we look at the economic reality of childcare, it is
    expensive but we do not want workers to be paid less. This is
    difficult. I would love for my kids' childcare providers to be
    paid $50 per hour but then I cannot afford to pay them that any
    more.
        So it is a tough issue and there are limits to how much we
    can make it affordable without just simply taking money from
    other workers and forcing them to be the ones to pay for it.
    But there are ways that we can reduce the costs that are out
    there now.
        And I see a big opportunity in being smaller providers,
    whether it is in a church center or a friend down the street
    that is at home with kids and decides to open up a childcare
    center or watch a few people. I think there is both added
    flexibility that could increase the number of providers, and
    also reduced regulations that could bring down the costs.
        We heard from Bernadette about it goes on and on and on,
    but all of the things to your physical structure that have to
    be done, the requirements about you can spray this antibiotic
    when somebody is there and you cannot do this. You have to give
    these drinks at these hours, down to the nitty-gritty.
        There do not need to be that many regulations on providers,
    because that just prevents them from coming into the market.
        Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Greszler.
        Ms. Graves.
        Ms. Goss Graves. You know, our childcare system and our
    current law, the block grant, it builds in a lot of choice for
    families. Some families want family friend and neighbor care,
    other families want center care. That is already baked in our
    system.
        What is not baked in is the level of investment to ensure
    that there is the supply we need, the workforce availability,
    and that families can actually afford childcare that it is high
    quality.
        And so what I guess the thing that I am hoping to leave you
    all with is that we cannot miss this moment. We cannot miss
    this window, with the visibility that we have had over the last
    year of what it means to have such a fragile childcare system.
        Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Graves.
        Thank you, Madame Chair. I yield.
        Chair Warren. Thank you, very much, Senator Warnock I am
    sorry, Senator Ossoff.
        Senator Ossoff. We look pretty similar.
        Chair Warren. It is down at that end of the dais, so it is
    good to see you.
        I am going to ask some questions now. I get a chance to do
    this.
        Even before the pandemic, half of all Americans lived in
    childcare deserts, areas where there simply are not enough
    licensed childcare slots to meet family needs. We all know that
    COVID made this worse, forcing thousands of childcare providers
    to close their doors.
        For families, this means excruciating decisions. Do I spend
    an hour each day driving back and forth two towns over because
    that is the only place where there is an open slot? Do I depend
    on neighbors or relatives who have their own lives to worry
    about? Some parents are juggling it all themselves, hoping that
    the baby does not start crying while they are trying to do a
    job interview or do their work from home.
        Lack of affordable high-quality childcare affects every
    aspect of our economy. And while it got a lot worse during the
    pandemic, it has been holding our economy back for decades.
        So Dr. Stevenson, I was hoping maybe we could go through
    some of the data on this. What happened to women's workforce
    participation say from the 1970s to the 1990s, through the
    1990s?
        Ms. Stevenson. So, between the 1970s and the late 1990s,
    women's labor force participation grew quite rapidly, going
    from 43 percent of women participating in 1970 to a peak of 60
    percent in 1999.
        Chair Warren. OK, so let us break this apart into pieces.
    So we have this sharply upwards slope. Did that trend continue?
        Ms. Stevenson. That trend did not continue. In fact, it
    flattened out and we saw women's labor force participation
    growth completely stall out, decline slightly, and then decline
    a lot in the 2008 recession although, as I mentioned
    previously, we saw a real resurgence in that participation rate
    starting around 2015.
        But it is also important to realize that male participation
    fell much faster than female participation.
        Chair Warren. So we have women's participation goes up
    sharply in the 70s, the 80s, and the 90s. It flattens in about
    2000. Is that what happened in our peer countries, like Canada?
    Did they see that same pattern of rise and then flattening?
        Ms. Stevenson. No. In fact, the U.S. really led the world
    with the rapid rise in the 70s and 80s and the rest of the
    world started catching up. And then, the rest of the world
    added more sort of workplace supports for working families.
    They added workplace flexibility, subsidized high-quality
    childcare, paid parental leave. We saw female participation
    continue to rise in other OECD countries.
        And the result has been that the U.S. went from near the
    top of OECD countries, in terms of female labor force
    participation, to really around the bottom among 22 OECD, the
    more developed countries.
        Chair Warren. All right. So our peer countries kept growing
    female labor force participation and creating more support for
    them, more family friendly policies, more childcare support and
    so on. The United States did not and we saw a flattening of
    women's labor force participation. What did that flattening of
    women's labor force participation mean for America's GDP?
        Ms. Stevenson. Well, I think the best way to see that is
    actually look and see what did it mean in the 1970s, 1980s, and
    1990s. The U.S. prepandemic economy was roughly 15 percent
    larger than it would have been if women were employed at the
    same rate and worked the same number of hours that they did in
    1970s. So then, think about we got 15 percent more GDP because
    of the growth in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. And then it stopped.
        So there are lots of estimates over how much bigger our GDP
    would have been if in the 2000s and the 2010s women had
    continued working. Do we--you know, if you go up toward, if you
    think about us adding the kinds of policies that other OECD
    countries would have added, some estimates suggest that female
    labor force participation would have been about 6 percentage
    points higher. And if you think about something like that, that
    is certainly more economic growth than something like tax cuts
    for corporations have ever generated.
        Chair Warren. All right. And I understand that McKinsey put
    out a report in which they put a dollar estimate on what would
    have happened, how much bigger our economy would have been if
    female labor force participation had continued. Are you
    familiar with that report? Do you remember the dollar figure on
    that?
        Ms. Stevenson. Yes, I am. You know, McKinsey has taken a
    look at, first of all, the entire globe and come up with really
    an enormous estimate. But my understanding is their estimate
    for the United States is $1.5 trillion increase in GDP if we
    had had that kind of continued growth in female labor force
    participation.
        Chair Warren. And I take it, just let me ask in your expert
    opinion, if we had universal childcare, do you think that would
    have had an impact on women's labor force participation?
        Ms. Stevenson. I absolutely do. A lot of women literally
    pay to work. In other words, what they spend on childcare is
    more than what they are bringing home after taxes. The reason
    they pay to work is because they know if they lose their
    foothold in the labor force, they are going to have an even
    harder time getting it back. But many women look at the idea of
    paying to work, being away from their children, and brining
    home no financial benefits for their family as a result, and
    think this is not a sacrifice I want to make.
        Chair Warren. I really appreciate this. You know, without
    childcare, millions of mothers just cannot work. And holding
    these women out of the workforce harms them, it harms their
    families, but it also harms our whole economy.
        This is what it means to say that childcare is
    infrastructure. It is part of the basic support we need so that
    everyone gets an opportunity to work and our economy is
    productive.
        This is our moment to act. You raised this point earlier,
    Ms. Goss Graves. The President has proposed a major expansion
    of childcare and early childhood education. And when Congress
    acts on infrastructure, childcare is not going to be left
    behind.
        So let me ask you, what size Federal investment do you
    believe is needed to provide quality affordable childcare to
    every family that needs it?
        Ms. Goss Graves. So, we think we need an investment of $700
    billion. At that level, we can ensure that families do not have
    to pay more than 7 percent of their income for childcare. At
    that level, we can ensure that childcare providers are actually
    paid wages that are dignity wages, akin to kindergarten
    teachers. And at that level, we can increase the supply so that
    we do not have this challenge of the childcare deserts that are
    especially a problem in rural areas, and that there will be
    more supply in terms of facilities but actually more workforce
    supply.
        Chair Warren. Well, I could not agree more. Just yesterday,
    I sent a letter to Congressional leadership with the support of
    over 100 of my colleagues, calling for a $700 billion
    investment in childcare.
        So let me ask you, Ms. Goss Graves, some in Congress have
    argued that we should focus just on roads and bridges and then
    come back to a discussion about childcare later, if ever. What
    would be the impact on women if we leave childcare behind in
    our infrastructure package?
        Ms. Goss Graves. I just think that we do not have that
    choice. We cannot let women who have lost so many jobs in this
    economy, who have held together their families in this economy
    with work that is both invisible and barely made visible and
    certainly underpaid in this period. People are counting on
    Congress to deliver on childcare.
        And that is a short-term solution but it is a long-term
    solution, too. It goes to their long-term economic security,
    their ability to retire with dignity.
        Chair Warren. I really appreciate your testimony here. You
    know, I support investing in our roads and bridges and
    broadband internet. It is all important. But we have to invest
    in the kind of infrastructure that women need, as well.
        As a young mother, I had a terrible time finding quality
    affordable childcare and twice I nearly quit school, I nearly
    lost my job because I could not manage childcare. If we do not
    get this time, my granddaughter is going to face the same kind
    of problem I faced, and that is simply wrong. We cannot let
    that happen. The infrastructure train is leaving the station
    and we cannot leave childcare behind.
        So let me, if I can, I am going to do a second round of
    questions here.
        I want to talk about another aspect of childcare that many
    of you have raised today, and I appreciate your raising it. We
    have two very different systems in our country for teaching our
    little ones. For five and 6-year-olds, of course, and for older
    kids, we have public schools. No matter where you live, no
    matter how much money you make, no matter whether you have a
    job, you can send your public schools to learn. And you can do
    it for free.
        Now why did public schools start at the age of five or six?
    Well, mostly because back then nobody thought children could
    learn anything earlier than that. And now, of course, we know
    that is not true, that early childhood experiences affect
    whether a child is ready for first grade. But they also affect
    that child all the way throughout childhood and into adulthood.
        For example, high-quality early childhood education is
    linked to better health in adulthood and reduced odds of
    substance abuse or arrest. Many experts point out that when we
    spend a nickel on our smallest learners, we save dollars down
    the line.
        But for the littlest kids, parents are on their own. Do not
    have an extra $10,000 or $15,000 a year to send your child to a
    high-quality early childhood program? Then you get to juggle
    between friends and relatives, or maybe just leave your job
    because childcare costs more than you can earn.
        Dr. Stevenson, let me ask you, do these two separate
    systems make sense, given what the evidence says about the
    benefits of high-quality early care and high-quality early
    education for our children?
        Ms. Stevenson. I believe if we were designing our education
    system today from scratch, we would absolutely be emphasizing
    early learning as a critical part of that education system. As
    you said, we did not know back when we designed our education
    system that so much learning happens in the first 5 years. We
    now know that really does form the foundation upon which people
    develop and grow.
        But I really want to tie this back to in the last century,
    our economic growth was completely driven by the fact that we
    educated workers more than any other country in the world. We
    are now not educating our citizens more than any other country
    in the world. We are behind on early childhood education. We
    are also behind on universities.
        And this failure to invest in people, it is ultimately
    going to hold our economy back.
        Chair Warren. So, I think the evidence is clear here that
    you are citing that high-quality care helps all of our children
    learn and grow. That now, in addition to Head Start, we do have
    a limited public program to help low-income parents get
    affordable care to their kids, funded primarily through the
    Child Care Development and Block Grant Program, CCDBG.
        But our public childcare system works very, very
    differently from our public school system. Ms. Goss Graves,
    does every single parent quality for help getting childcare,
    regardless of their income or work status under current law?
        Ms. Goss Graves. Oh, I wish that were so. It is really only
    the lowest income families that quality. And by a family
    qualifying, what that means is there are many, many children
    who would benefit from being in an early childhood program who
    cannot because their parents are not eligible.
        Chair Warren. OK, so not everyone qualifies.
        Let me ask you about the people who do qualify. If you are
    eligible for the program, can you just walk into a childcare
    center and sign your child up?
        Ms. Goss Graves. Unfortunately, it is also not that easy.
    There is the work that you have to do to demonstrate that you
    are eligible, which ends up serving as a barrier for a lot of
    parents. On top of that, there are waiting lists. And
    processing all of this can mean that parents and families, they
    languish on wait lists for months.
        Chair Warren. You know, we do not make parents prove that
    they are working or that their income is low enough to be able
    to send their child to first grade. We do not put those
    children on waiting lists to get into second grade. We
    understand that education is beneficial for all kinds, so we
    invest in it as a country.
        Early care and education should be the same. We need to
    make it available for all of our babies, regardless of how much
    money their parents earn or what kind of job they have. You
    know, we cannot lose sight of why this matters.
        Ms. Ngoh, tell me about the children in your program. How
    do you see them grown and learn when they are with you?
        Ms. Ngoh. I want to clarify something.
        What I want to clarify is I was misunderstood. When I talk
    about regulations, the question was what obstacles were there
    when you wanted to start your program. And I listed some
    obstacles that are there.
        Having regulations in childcare is very, very important.
    They are the basis of trust. Health and safety are very, very
    vital in daycare.
        So I should not be mistaken to say that regulations are not
    required. They are required and all we need, we need to support
    to help us regulate those regulations.
        But parents who keep their kid with us, they need to trust
    us and regulations build that trust because parents know that
    their kids are in a safe place.
        Thank you for that clarification.
        Chair Warren. Thank you. Yes, go ahead.
        Ms. Ngoh. Let me now answer your question. The kids I have
    in my daycare, I have kids in my daycare now that range from
    the ages of 18 months to 10 years. Those kids in my daycare
    have different, different personalities. They have different
    health issues. They are at different levels of development.
        I have kids that are shy. I have kids that are happy. I
    have kids that somehow struggle with their speech, we call them
    speech delayed. We have kids that are just recovering from the
    pandemic and they are in a trauma.
        I have a kid--I will share two stories. One, I have a kid
    that the mom was pregnant and lost the pregnancy. And when the
    child was born, apparently the child lived for 1 day and died.
    And that child came to daycare and all I watched the child do
    was trying to pick toys and make them look sad. A child that
    used to be a happy child, you see that child struggling with
    feeling sadness.
        I have the task, I have the job of recognizing what that
    child is going through and helping that child to recover,
    helping that child to deal with sadness.
        Today, I have a parent in my daycare who is making a little
    bit over $475 a week. She has three kids. The first child is
    14, the second is 13, and the last one is 2 years old. That
    parent does not drive. That parent has to push that child in a
    stroller to my daycare every day and then go down straight to
    the bus station to take a buss to go to work.
        And sometimes you see that parent getting home tired. I am
    obliged when, like yesterday, it was raining. That parent,
    there was no way she is going to traipse 30 minutes under the
    rain to come and pick up the child. She had to call me to find
    out if I can help pick her up from the bus stop. I had to go
    pick her up from the bus stop. I had to arrange for someone to
    take her from my daycare to drop her and the baby. Otherwise,
    they would be wet to their pants under the rain.
        That parent is just one of the so many different cases we
    go through on a day-to-day basis.
        When you ask me, as a provider, as a parent, as a business
    owner, what is the role of childcare, I am submitting that
    childcare is a public service. Childcare is a public service.
    Childcare should be prioritized. If we do not prioritize
    childcare now, we are going to get down into what we call a big
    disaster later on.
        Like I earlier on indicated, the job we do is about
    infrastructure, building the brains of these young kids. If we
    fail to build these brains correctly, it is about teaching them
    those small first--we call them magic words--thank you, no, I
    am sorry. Helping them to build their personality. Helping them
    to build character.
        If we fail to do this, what is going to happen down the
    line? These kids will be will be wayward one way or the other.
        What will it need to fix the situation? If we fail at this
    level, if we do not have the resources that we need to build
    our young kids so that by the time they become of age they have
    what it takes, character, they have the skills, they can manage
    their emotions, they can integrate, they have the opportunities
    to learn and strive and fly like every other child, down the
    line, we are going to have more problems.
        What I say is the play they do at daycare, play to me is a
    factory. It is a factory where the kids learn different things.
    And that is just what we are doing.
        I would take one more minute to say something
        Chair Warren. We are going to need to keep this short. We
    are a little over here.
        Ms. Ngoh. Just a last minute. The one thing that I want us
    to know is that those kids that I am watching, if I do not
    watch those kids, you and some of the Senators will not go to
    work. If I do not sit here, if daycare providers, whether they
    are family based, whether they are center-based, providers, if
    they do not do this job, you will not be able to do your own
    job. Other people will be affected by that.
        If any morning I get up and say oh, I am feeling sick, I
    cannot work today, five parents will not go to work. What is
    the multiplier effect of those parents not going to work?
        Chair Warren. So thank you. This is really important, and
    the work you do is enormously valuable and important.
        We now have decades of research showing how important these
    early childhood experiences are and the children in your care
    are very lucky to have you.
        So we have talked about the impact of our underinvestment
    in childcare on our economy. We have talked about the
    importance of investing in high-quality early childhood
    education on our children and long-term on our economy.
        There is just one more issue I want to talk about before we
    leave, and we have already alluded to it today but I want to go
    back to this again.
        Our Nation, for decades, has underinvested in childcare and
    childcare workers are among those that have been hit hardest by
    the pandemic. As of this April, the childcare industry had lost
    more than 150,000 jobs. That is one in every seven jobs in the
    sector. Women of color have been disproportionately hurt and
    many providers are still struggling to get by.
        As a society, we have not valued this work the way that we
    should. In 2020, the average pay for a childcare workers was
    only $12.24. That is the average. Think about how people can
    make more money doing the checkout at McDonald's.
        So here is the first question, and I can ask this one of
    you, Ms. Ngoh. Do you think that $12 an hour accurately
    reflects the value of the work you do for children and
    families? I think there is going to be a one word answer here.
        Ms. Ngoh. The answer is no. And I want to defend my no,
    because when you pay me $1, what are you rewarding me for? You
    are equating what services that are only equal to $12. If
    doctors do take care of kids, they are paid so much. If
    teachers, if grade three teachers do take care of kids, they
    are paid so much. They are building brains.
        I am handling the most delicate portion of that
    developmental goal, our children. And you think that I only
    deserve $12? When the same kids that I bring up to this level,
    I have done the most difficult job. When I do that job, I pass
    that child on to middle school, to pre-K school, they are paid
    more.
        Chair Warren. Yes.
        Ms. Ngoh. Is that fair? I think the answer is no.
        Chair Warren. So it is very important work. Let me just
    ask, can you easily raise your fees so that the hourly wage
    goes up?
        Ms. Ngoh. How can we raise our fees easily when the parents
    are struggling? I just narrated a story of this lady who makes
    $475 a week with three kids. How do I raise my fees to such a
    parent?
        When the pandemic hit, most parents were unable to even pay
    their out-of-pocket family fees. Now I had a decision to do
    what? To cancel out-of-pocket fees, suspended collecting those
    fees. I had too many things in my mind. If I send away these
    kids, this parent that I can watch their kids for free, what
    will happen when they get subsidies and later on need my
    program and are able to pay?
        So my first answer is no, it is not possible to just raise
    fees.
        Chair Warren. So you have given us the illustration of how
    the childcare market is broken. The price of providing high-
    quality care at fair wages is so high that many parents are
    simply priced out of the market. Childcare providers cannot
    offer more slots because they are worried the parents cannot
    pay, which in turn creates more shortages.
        So can I just ask you, Dr. Stevenson, this looks like a
    market that is broken. I am going to ask you wrap up here.
        What should we be thinking about to make this market work
    better?
        Ms. Stevenson. OK. The market is broken and it is broken
    because parents cannot be paying for the investments that need
    to happen when their children are young. These are things that
    should be paid for over a lifetime.
        And that is exactly what our policymakers, what our system
    is set up to do, which is to have Congress fund these
    investments in children, have our Government fund K-12, have
    our Government fund early childhood education and childcare.
    And then our children will grow up to be able to be more
    productive, to earn more, to allow us to produce more. And that
    will actually make it so that we can raise more in revenue,
    more than enough to cover the cost of this.
        So it is incredibly important that we provide that subsidy
    and we take that burden off of parents, who desperately want to
    see their children invested in.
        Chair Warren. Well, thank you, Dr. Stevenson. And thank you
    all who have been here today.
        I think you are exactly right. We do not ask parents to pay
    the full cost of first grade for their 6 or 7-year-old and we
    should not ask parents to pay the full cost of educating and
    caring for a 2-year-old either. And this is exactly why I am
    fighting for a $700 billion investment in childcare.
        After parents, childcare providers are some of children's
    most important teachers. We need to transform our childcare
    system to recognize the skill and the value of care workers.
    Expanding quality care would mean that providers can offer fair
    pay and benefits, and it would make it easier for families to
    be able to find quality care.
        We have this opportunity. This is our moment. We are
    rebuilding America's infrastructure. And a core part of that is
    making sure that we make the investment in our next generation,
    in our children. We do that and that lets mothers go back to
    work, and fathers go back to work now. That helps our economy
    and it helps our youngest Americans.
        We have to make sure that when we rebuild infrastructure in
    this country that we create good middle-class jobs and that
    childcare providers are not left behind.
        So I want to thank all of our witnesses who are here today.
    I appreciate your providing testimony.
        For any Senators who wish to submit questions for the
    record, those questions are due 1 week from today. That is
    Wednesday, June 30th.
        For our witnesses, you have 45 days to respond to any
    questions.
        And again, thank you all. I appreciate your being here. We
    have a chance to do something important.
        Thank you.
        This hearing is adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 4:02 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
        [Prepared statements and responses to written questions
    supplied for the record follow:]

                    PREPARED STATEMENT OF FATIMA GOSS GRAVES
                 President and CEO, National Women's Law Center
                                 June 23, 2021
        Good afternoon Chair Warren, Ranking Member Kennedy, and other
    distinguished Members of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
    Subcommittee on Economic Policy. My name is Fatima Goss Graves, and I
    am the President and CEO of the National Women's Law Center (NWLC).
    NWLC fights for gender justice--in the courts, in public policy, and in
    our society--working across the issues that are central to the lives of
    women and girls. We use the law in all its forms to change culture and
    drive solutions to the gender inequity that shapes our society, and to
    break down the barriers that harm all of us--especially women of color,
    LGBTQ people, and women and families with low incomes.
        I am grateful for the opportunity to testify before you today on
    the childcare crisis our Nation currently faces, and the investment and
    policies needed to rebuild this critical foundation of our society and
    economy equitably.
    America's Childcare Crisis
        I want to begin by thanking lawmakers for their leadership on the
    care economy and focusing on childcare in the context of relief,
    recovery, job creation, and advancing racial and gender justice. We are
    lucky to have Chair Warren championing this issue.
        We are also eternally grateful to Congress for The American Rescue
    Plan and the 2020 COVID-19 relief packages, which together provided
    over $50 billion in relief funding for childcare and early learning and
    helped save the childcare sector from collapse.
        But make no mistake, the investment in childcare cannot end there.
        The American Rescue Plan provided urgently needed relief, but it
    was just that--relief. It was not designed or sufficiently funded to
    address the long-term structural flaws in our economy that made the
    pandemic so devastating, for women--especially women of color--and
    their families.
        For the childcare and early learning sector, the pandemic has laid
    bare and exacerbated the deep inequities of a childcare system that
    relies on families paying unaffordable sums, early educators being paid
    poverty-level wages, and too many communities across the country
    lacking sufficient workforce or facilities to meet childcare demands.
    Since the start of the pandemic, one in eight childcare jobs has
    disappeared, \1\ women have lost a net 4.2 million jobs,\2\ and 1.79
    million women have left the workforce entirely,\3\ with childcare
    obligations likely playing a significant role. Additionally, as the
    country reopens, childcare programs are facing enormous and
    unprecedented staffing shortages, which means fewer slots and longer
    waiting lists. This blow to the childcare industry will affect
    childcare providers, parents, and children long after the health crisis
    has passed.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \1\ Claire Ewing-Nelson and Julie Vogtman, National Women's Law
    Center, ``One in Eight Child Care Jobs Have Been Lost Since the Start
    of the Pandemic'' (June 2010), https://nwlc.org/resources/sector-
    report-child-careworkers/.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        The United States has not had a comprehensive childcare and early
    education system since a brief period during World War II. Since then,
    American families have been largely left on their own to fend for
    themselves, relying on the underpaid labor of Black, Latinx,
    Indigenous, and immigrant women so that others can work, and the time
    of older siblings to cover the care needs of families instead of
    attending to their own education.
        It does not have to be this way. The pre-COVID status quo was
    unsustainable and left families and our entire economy more vulnerable
    to the ravages of the pandemic. We can and must do better as we recover
    and rebuild. We now have a unique window of opportunity in front of us
    to deliver for women and their families. To build the childcare
    infrastructure that shows women we have heard their cries for help and
    that we value care work--both paid and unpaid--as the backbone of our
    economy.
        Even before COVID-19, America faced a quiet childcare crisis.
        It was frankly far too easy to bring the childcare industry to its
    knees. Before anyone had heard of the coronavirus:
        Families were struggling to afford childcare costs--if they could
    find childcare at all.

        In more than half of States, care for an infant in a
            childcare center costs more than in-State college tuition,\4\
            and in one study, over 80 percent of two-child families spent
            more on childcare than rent.\5\ Additionally, low-income
            families spend an average of 35 percent of their income on
            childcare which amounts to five times what is considered
            affordable.\6\

        Fewer than one in seven eligible children were served by
            the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) and related
            Federal childcare programs.\7\

        Families--particularly in rural areas--struggled with a
            lack of care options. Research has found that over half of
            Americans live in a childcare desert, or a neighborhood with an
            insufficient supply of licensed childcare.\8\

        Early educators were paid poverty-level wages for caring for and
    educating our children.

        Childcare is one of the lowest-paid professions in the
            United States,\9\ despite how valuable the work is, rising
            requirements for credentials and education and extensive
            research pointing to the of the early years for young
            children's healthy development.\10\

        Wages for providers average less than $12 per hour,\11\
            about half of programs do not offer health benefits, and recent
            data show that over half of childcare providers were enrolled
            in at least one public assistance or support program.\12\

        These inequities disproportionately impact women and families of
    color.

        Virtually all childcare providers (over 90 percent) are
            women, and disproportionately women of color and immigrant
            women.\13\

        Black and Latinx mothers are more likely to work in jobs
            with low pay and few or no benefits, making care more difficult
            to afford.\14\

        In addition, Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC)
            families are more likely to face more significant barriers to
            accessing care,\15\ including high costs, lack of care options
            that match their work schedules, language barriers, and lack of
            culturally competent, trusted options, all leading to
            inequitable participation in licensed childcare across racial
            groups.

        In short, the pre-COVID status quo was unsustainable and left
    families and our entire economy more vulnerable to the ravages of the
    pandemic. We can and must do better.
        As we recover, we are entering a new struggle in childcare.
        Childcare programs have been faced with unpredictable demand
    throughout the pandemic. While most of the economy was closed during
    the first phase of the pandemic, many providers struggled to keep their
    doors open to serve frontline workers or to stay open amid declining
    enrollment and increased operating costs.\16\ Two in five providers
    report taking on debt for their programs using personal credit cards to
    pay for increased costs and three in five work in programs that have
    reduced expenses through layoffs, furloughs, or pay cuts.\17\ However,
    as parents increasingly transition out of remote work, programs are
    dealing with a surge of demand and are unable to find and retain their
    childcare workforce. The potential impacts include a lack of stability
    for children in care and immense burdens on parents, including job
    loss.
        As a Pennsylvania childcare program executive director pointedly
    noted in a local paper, if you are a childcare worker making only $11
    an hour, but the local grocery store is paying $14 an hour, that is
    where workers are going to seek employment.\18\ Another director said
    she sees fast-food restaurants incentivizing new workers through sign-
    on bonuses when she cannot offer much over minimum wage let alone
    benefits.\19\
        Elliot Haspel, a childcare scholar, recently noted in the
    Washington Post that it is not just childcare for young children that
    is disappearing. He also cited a public school in Michigan that was
    forced to end its program that provided before- and after-school care
    for the upcoming school year due to staffing shortages.\20\ According
    to analysis by the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), only one
    in four children who want to be in an after-school program are
    currently enrolled.\21\ Black and Latinx families are even more
    interested in participating in such programs,\22\ but these programs
    are increasingly hard to find.
        And a childcare shortage means fewer high-quality options for
    children and greater barriers for parents--especially mothers--to
    enter, stay in, and advance in the labor force.
        Federal relief dollars for childcare cannot fully address the
    workforce crisis.
        While the relief money is in the process of helping to stabilize
    programs in creative ways such as allowing temporary signing bonuses,
    as well as expanding services to parents that work nontraditional
    hours, children with disabilities, and those living in childcare
    deserts, it is not a sufficient or sustained investment to raise wages
    or provide benefits. The infusion of funds is short term with States
    having to spend all relief stabilization grants by September 2023 and
    their CCDBG supplemental by 2024. Building up high-quality childcare
    supply is about more than investing in facilities--it means attracting
    and retaining a highly qualified workforce to ensure sufficient slots
    for enrollment. And doing that requires long-term investments in
    building a system that values childcare workers.
    Why Does This Matter?
        We need reliable, affordable, high-quality care so that parents--
    and mostly women--can get and keep jobs. Before the pandemic, in
    February 2020, we celebrated women comprising over half the
    workforce.\23\ Fast forward to today, and 1.79 million women have left
    the workforce entirely since the start of the pandemic,\24\ in large
    part due to caregiving responsibilities. Analysis by the National
    Women's Law Center underscores that ``Before the pandemic, women's
    labor force participation rate had not been this low since 1988.''\25\
        Lack of access to affordable, high-quality childcare is an
    important piece of the puzzle. Last month, the Federal Reserve in
    Minnesota released a study showing that in the last quarter of 2020,
    childcare was still a big barrier to parents' participation in the
    workforce. Nearly a quarter of all parents were either working less or
    not working at all because of disruption in care and schooling for
    their children.\26\ The study also underlined the disproportionate
    effect on mothers who are being prevented from full participation in
    the workforce, and even more severe labor force impacts for Black,
    Latinx, single mothers, and those with low incomes.\27\
        A recent survey of families with children age birth to five found
    that since the pandemic, more than one in three female caregivers had
    to leave the workforce or reduce their work hours/responsibilities.\28\
    Of the women who had to stop working, over 80 percent said it was due
    to financial constraint.\29\ The shares of women who were more likely
    to indicate these changes in workforce participation were higher for
    Black and Latinx women.\30\
        While these numbers are cause for alarm, in fact it is more
    surprising that we are not seeing a larger reduction in labor force
    participation. Throughout history, mothers have always found
    workarounds--accepting a lower paying job because it offered more
    flexibility, putting off educational opportunities, foregoing other
    necessities because the cost of childcare ate up a third of their
    income, working themselves to the bone to try and balance breadwinning
    and caregiving. Additional childcare workarounds became commonplace for
    parents during the pandemic, including but not limited to: piecing
    available care together weekly or even daily depending on schedule and
    who is available; working full-time while caregiving full-time; finding
    creative caresharing responsibility arrangements (neighbors, friends,
    grandparents, pods, alternating work schedules, etc.); working all
    hours of the day and night to care for children during waking hours;
    and, all at the expense of parents' free time and mental health.
        But these sacrifices also bring a cost: in opportunities foregone,
    stress intensified, a bottled-up primal scream that was finally
    released during the pandemic as these issues can to a head. These
    mothers know that without bold and urgent action, we are setting them--
    and the families who depend on them--up for a lifetime of economic
    insecurity and stress.
        The first years of a child's life are critical to their long-term
    development.
        As parents desperately seek childcare slots, we risk not only
    undermining parental employment and economic growth but also children's
    long-term development.
        The science is clear: developmental disparities take root well
    before children are 5 years old, and families' economic instability and
    stress--which have intensified during the pandemic--are associated with
    adverse outcomes in terms of health and educational achievement.\31\
        Luckily, the inverse is also true. When we invest in children
    starting at birth, it yields long-term positive outcomes for health,
    education, and employment.\32\ Since children under 5 years old are the
    most diverse generation in American history, investing in high-quality,
    affordable childcare and early learning also advances racial
    equity.\33\
        Investing in higher wages and benefits for childcare providers
    leads to higher quality care for children since attracting and
    retaining caring, consistent providers supports healthy child
    development. Quality childcare programs have been associated with
    positive health benefits, including higher immunization rates,
    screening and identification rates; improved mental health; and reduced
    smoking.\34\ In addition, childcare plays a vital role in supporting
    parental employment, which matters for children because family economic
    security positively impacts children's healthy development. Stabilizing
    the childcare sector and rebuilding a more equitable system is a
    crucial investment in our youngest children.
    What Does an Equitable Childcare System Look Like?

        Ensuring no family pays more than 7 percent of their income
            on childcare. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
            (HHS) recommends that childcare be considered affordable if
            family out-of-pocket costs are equivalent to 7 percent or less
            of total household income.\35\

        Paying childcare providers like similarly qualified
            elementary school teachers. From birth to age 3, children's
            brains are making more than a million neural connections per
            second, influenced greatly by their interactions with their
            caregivers.\36\ Childcare workers should be fairly compensated
            for the valuable and complex work of supporting this
            development.

        Building the supply of available childcare so every family
            can find the childcare that meets their unique needs. A
            family's zip code should not determine their available
            childcare options.

        There are current proposals in Congress that would help us achieve
    the equitable childcare system I just described, covering children from
    birth until they are age 13. We thank Chair Warren for her leadership
    in introducing strong pieces of legislation, including the Universal
    Child Care and Early Learning Act, which focuses on increasing
    compensation for providers, limiting family copays to 7 percent of
    family income, and building the supply of care. A complementary bill
    was recently introduced by Senator Wyden with Chair Warren that invests
    in rebuilding childcare infrastructure and provides additional
    mandatory funding. We are also supportive of Senator Murray's Child
    Care for Working Families Act which also has these principles. We
    estimate the need at $700 billion over 10 years to build this system.
        Such a bold and robust investment would create 2.3 million good-
    paying jobs\37\--a combination of jobs with better compensation for
    early educators and a necessary support for parents' workforce
    participation.
        The investment would also enable parents--especially mothers--to
    participate in the labor force and have greater financial security.
        NWLC has a new study out together with Columbia University's Center
    on Poverty and Social Policy that shows that public investments to
    guarantee high-quality, affordable childcare for all would increase the
    number of women with young children working full-time by about 17
    percent and by about 31 percent for women without any college
    degree.\38\ Women with less than a college degree and lower incomes
    would experience the most significant relative economic gains, mostly
    from being able to enter the workforce.\39\ Additionally, Black and
    Latinx women, who already face compounding labor market discrimination,
    lower wages, and more difficulty finding childcare, would experience
    larger percent increases in their incomes.\40\ A strong investment in
    childcare is good for the economy as a whole.
        Childcare programs cannot compete for workers like other sectors of
    our economy and need.
        Childcare programs can attract the workers they need so working
    parents can find and rely on the care they need Federal support to
    attract and retain the workforce. A recent study on teacher turnover in
    early childhood using statewide data in Louisiana showed that even
    prepandemic more than one third of teachers leave their program one
    year to the next, and of those, the considerable majority are not
    teaching in another program the following year.\41\ However, positions
    in the K-12 system where teachers receive better wages and benefits,
    have only a 16 percent turnover rate, and of those, half are merely
    changing schools rather than leaving the profession entirely.\42\ We
    must invest in raising providers' wages to build the supply of
    childcare for working parents.
        The investment will advance gender and racial equity:
        The disproportionately Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian American
    and Pacific Islander, and immigrant women who work in childcare and
    early education deserve better jobs and working conditions.
        Our Nation's children, nearly half of whom are children of color,
    deserve investments in their care and education from birth to age
    13.\43\
        Mothers deserve childcare they can depend on.\44\ Access to high-
    quality, affordable childcare is especially important for Black mothers
    who are more likely than other mothers to be in the workforce and to be
    their family's primary breadwinner.
        Overall, these investments would transform women's earning
    capabilities and retirement security.
        Over the entire life course, access to affordable care could
    increase the lifetime earnings for women with two children by about
    $94,000, which would lead to an increase of about $20,000 in private
    savings and an additional $10,000 in Social Security benefits. It would
    also boost the collective lifetime earnings of a cohort of 1.3 million
    women by $130 billion. By retirement age, access to affordable, high-
    quality childcare would mean that women with two children would have
    about $160 per month in additional cash flow from increased private
    savings and Social Security benefits. This policy would also advance
    racial equity and help close racial earnings and wealth gaps. Black and
    Latinx women see additional lifetime Social Security benefits of
    $13,000 and $12,000, respectively (compared to $8,000 for white
    women).\45\
    Conclusion
        Childcare is infrastructure. It connects workers and jobs. It makes
    all other work possible. It supports the positive growth and
    development of our Nation's children. Without a childcare system that
    works for every family, our economy will suffer in the short and long
    term. Therefore, it must be a key facet of our national economic
    infrastructure.

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                     ______

                     PREPARED STATEMENT OF BETSEY STEVENSON
      Professor of Public Policy and Economics, Gerald R. Ford School of
                                 Public Policy
                                 June 23, 2021
        Chair Warren, Ranking Member Kennedy, and distinguished Members of
    the Subcommittee, thank you for the invitation to speak to you today
    about childcare. I am an economist who has spent much of the past three
    decades trying to better understand women's employment, families, and
    the porous boundaries between our personal lives and our work lives.
    These porous boundaries were completely shredded during the pandemic as
    tens of millions of people began to work from home for the first time
    along with their children who lost access to in-person school and
    childcare.
        My research has shown that policy choices shape the constraints
    that people face and therefore their employment and family decisions.
    The choices you make now about childcare will shape the U.S.
    macroeconomy for decades to come by influencing who returns to work,
    what types of jobs parents take, and what kinds of promotion paths
    parents take. It's not just women, men's employment choices are also
    shaped by access to childcare. In 2014, a survey found that 49 percent
    of parents had passed up a job because it conflicted with family
    obligations. \1\ The pandemic caused nearly all parents to face these
    kinds of choices over the past year. In a recent survey I conducted in
    conjunction with RIWI we found that childcare responsibilities during
    the COVID-19 crisis impacted the employment of 59 percent of parents.
    Many cut their work hours, turned down promotions, changed jobs for
    more flexibility, paused training or education, and some quit jobs
    entirely. These impacts were reported by men and women almost in equal
    number, a fact that reflects the shift toward greater equality in the
    home that has led men to increase the number of hours they spend on
    primary childcare and household chores over the past several decades,
    partially offsetting the decline in time women spend on those
    activities. \2\ Dads are increasingly playing the role of the primary
    caregiver in the household: 1 in 5 fathers are the primary caregiver of
    preschool-age children when the mother is employed. \3\ In the last 30
    years, the number of families with stay-at-home dads and a working mom
    doubled, \4\ the number of father-only families more than doubled, and
    in 2019 nearly a quarter of single parents with children under age 18
    were father-only households. \5\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \1\ Harris Poll of 4,096 U.S. adults conducted online May 27-30,
    2014. Reported in ``Eleven Facts About American Families and Work'',
    October 2014 Report of the Council of Economic Advisers https://
    obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/docs/eleven-facts-
    about-family-and-work-final.pdf.
         \2\ Bianchi et al. (2006); American Time Use Survey.
         \3\ Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2011.
         \4\ Census Table MC1 from 2019 Current Population Survey.
         \5\ Census Table FM-1 from Current Population Surve.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        However, the pandemic highlighted the fact that women continue to
    bear disproportionate responsibility for care giving within families
    and the childcare crisis impacted women more than men in many ways.
        The first factor was the nature of the recession itself. This was
    our first service sector driven recession. The United States is an
    economy dominated by the service sector. In February 2020, there were
    131 million service sector job--86 percent of private sector jobs in
    the United States. Despite this large share of jobs, in every previous
    recession job loss has disproportionately occurred in the goods-
    producing sector. For example, in the 2009 recession, half of all jobs
    lost were lost in the goods-producing sector. In 2020, roughly 10
    percent of the jobs lost were in the good-producing sector. Women work
    disproportionately in the service sector and therefore the
    concentration of job loss in the service sector meant that women bore
    more of the job loss. Between February 2020 and May 2020, women lost 13
    million jobs compared to 9 million jobs lost by men. However, over the
    last several months of recovery the gap has reversed as jobs held by
    women have been expanded faster than jobs held by men.
        The second factor was the closing of schools and childcare. More
    than two-thirds of children live in households in which all parents
    work. \6\ The pandemic made salient the many roles that schools play.
    While K-12 education is typically thought of as a source of education
    for children and therefore investment in the next generation. It is
    also a source of childcare for many families who are able to work for
    pay during the roughly 6 hours that their children are being taught and
    cared for by professional educators. Childcare for younger children
    serves very similar functions to primary school. Early childhood
    educators can improve outcomes for children by engaging in
    developmentally appropriate curriculum-based activities. They also
    provide crucial care for children in households in which all parents
    work.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \6\ American Community Survey 2019 Table B23008.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        The third factor is related to changes in family life that meant
    more mothers were likely to be in the labor force than in the past. In
    2019 mothers of children 6 years old and younger had the highest labor
    force participation than at any other time in the past. \7\ These
    mothers were also older than in the past, as the average age of mothers
    has been rising over time. Finally, a greater share of 40-something
    women were mothers than in the past. The total number of children born
    to women by the end of their fertile years, known as completed
    fertility, hit a low in 2006 and has risen over the ensuing decade and
    a half. \8\ The culmination was a large number of women with
    substantial work experience, whose families relied on childcare.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \7\ BLS, Current Population Survey.
         \8\ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/07/with-a-
    potential-baby-bust-on-the-horizon-key-facts-about-fertility-in-the-u-
    s-before-the-pandemic/
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        These challenges that women faced were not, however, unique to the
    recession. Instead, they highlight our failure to adapt childcare,
    workplace flexibility, and workplace parental leave policies as women
    have entered the workforce and gained experience, training, and
    education that has made them an essential part of the economy. Women
    are no longer secondary earners as economists used to refer to them-
    able to step back from work whenever their household demands required.
    Today, more than 40 percent of mothers are the primary earner for their
    family, earning at least half of total household income. \9\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \9\ https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2019/05/
    10/469739/breadwinning-mothers-continue-u-s-norm/
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Our transformation of our economy and our families has taken place
    over the past 50 years.
        In 1970, 43 percent of women participated in the labor force
    participation, but over the next three decades women's labor force
    participation grew to 60 percent, hitting a peak in 1999. During this
    period of growth, the United States had one of the highest female labor
    force participation rates of any OECD country. This surge in women's
    paid employment was important for fueling U.S. GDP growth, accounting
    for nearly one-fifth of real GDP growth in the 1970s and 1980s. The
    U.S. prepandemic economy was roughly 15 percent larger than it would
    have been if women were employed at the same rate and worked the same
    number of hours that they did in 1970.
        Yet, in the ensuing decades, the U.S. rank has fallen to near the
    bottom among 22 OECD countries as these countries have expanded family
    friendly policies including parental leave and childcare. \10\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \10\ Blau and Kahn, 2013 https://www.nber.org/papers/w18702.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        While women's labor force participation growth stalled in the 21st
    century, it declined even further for men. Declining labor force
    participation was one of the challenges that the U.S. economy faced in
    the 2000s even prior to the 2008 recession, which further exacerbated
    that decline. However, the ongoing economic recovery led to a recovery
    in the labor force participation rate that accelerated in the 5 years
    prior to the pandemic. That recovery was fueled by women's--and
    mother's--increasing labor force participation. The Kansas City Federal
    Reserve Bank found that college-educated women in particular drove the
    rebound in the prime-age labor force participation rate between 2015
    and 2019. \11\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \11\ https://www.kansascityfed.org/research/economic-bulletin/
    women-driving-recent-recovery-labor-force-participation-2019/
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Economic growth over the past several decades has been concentrated
    in the service sector. To put this in perspective in February 2020 the
    goods sector still had a million fewer jobs than it had at the start of
    the 2008 recession. In contrast, the service sector had a 15 million
    more jobs. This shift has both been fueled and helped fuel women's
    labor force growth. Roughly two-thirds of the job growth since the
    start of the 2008 recession went to women. With that job growth for all
    women, also came growth in employment in the childcare sector.
        By December 2020 women held the majority of nonfarm payroll jobs in
    the United States. They held that position for January and February
    and, while it was undone with the pandemic, they are likely to regain
    that position again as we continue to recover. Already women's job
    growth has exceeded that among men.
        Even though women will likely return to employment in numbers that
    allow them to regain their majority share of jobs, great growth in
    women's employment and better matching of parents to jobs in which they
    can be most productive requires a more reliable, affordable, and a
    higher quality childcare sector.
        It's not only women's rising labor force participation that has
    changed, but our rising life expectancy has changed our working lives.
    A smaller share of adulthood is spent with young children in the home.
    A century ago, women having children could scarcely expect to live
    beyond age 50 and the typical woman had roughly four children. Not
    surprisingly, many women's entire adult lives were spent caring for
    children. In contrast, women today have a life expectancy of roughly 80
    and have half as many children. As a result, women's adult lives are no
    longer spent primarily raising children. This is not to say that
    children are not an important part of most people's lives. Parents
    require support and flexibility, both of which will help them develop
    labor market skills that they will be able to use for decades. Equally,
    the time that parents need off to care for children is a shrinking
    fraction of the total amount of hours they will work over their
    lifetime. We can afford to give them that time.
        Let me conclude by talking directly about childcare.
        As the banking committee you understand the importance of a strong
    financial sector to a functioning U.S. economy. When the great
    financial crisis swept the globe in 2008, Congress, the Federal
    Reserve, and the U.S. Treasury took swift action. The financial system
    was regarded as the backbone of the economy--if it were to collapse it
    could take the entire economy with it. Part of the banking and
    financial sector's importance is that financial transactions allow us
    to invest in companies, new ideas, and capital equipment. That
    investment allows higher productivity growth and therefore ongoing
    economic growth.
        Childcare and education has more in common to the banking system
    then you may suspect. It is the backbone of our future economy because
    it invests in and develops our human capital. While women have often
    done this labor for no or little pay, do not underestimate its value.
    Human talent is developed through these investments and its ultimately
    human ingenuity that fuels our economic growth.
        The last several decades have brought tremendous strides in our
    understanding of children's learning. Infants and toddlers take in the
    world around them at birth, laying the foundation upon which the rest
    of their knowledge will be built. Researchers have established that
    profound advances take place in individuals' reasoning, language
    acquisition, and problem solving in early childhood. Children need age
    and developmentally appropriate play and learning from very early ages.
    We now know that it is not sufficient to begin a child's education at
    kindergarten. However, there is great inequality in access to early
    childhood education. Yes, parents are investing heavily in their
    children--both mothers and fathers are spending more time with their
    children than earlier cohorts did, despite fewer children living in
    homes with a stay-at-home parent. But early childhood education
    requires knowledge about child development that not all parents have
    and most children will spend time with other caregivers.
        More than two-thirds of young children live in households in which
    all parents are working--either a single working parent or a two-income
    household. Yet high-quality childcare is hard to find and is expensive.
    Families of children under the age of 5 spend $250 per week on average
    on childcare. \12\ Research looked at parents preferences and
    understanding of childcare to attempt to understand why so few children
    get access to high quality early childhood education and care. The
    research found that the childcare market's quality problems reflect
    parents' inability to afford high quality care and challenges in
    identifying quality among programs, but it does not reflect an
    unwillingness to pay for these programs. \13\ The distinction between
    an inability to afford rather than an unwillingness to pay is
    important--parents would invest more in their children if they could.
    And that is why parents with high incomes do invest so much in their
    children. Lower income parents simply cannot afford the high cost of
    high-quality programs. The result is unequal investment in children
    that fundamentally erodes the ability for the level playing field
    necessary for a competitive market economy to thrive.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \12\ https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/early-childhood/news/
    2020/02/18/480554/child-care-crisis-causes-job-disruptions-2-million-
    parents-year/
         \13\ Gordon, Hebst, Tekin, 2018 ``Who's Minding the Kids'', NBER
    working paper https://www.nber.org/papers/w25335.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Early childhood education does three things: (1) it provides
    childcare that allows parents to work thereby raising household income
    (2) it develops skills in children that lead to higher lifetime
    earnings and (3) supports the equal investments in children necessary
    for a competitive market economy to reach its potential. \14\ Research
    suggests that expanding early learning initiatives would create
    benefits to society of nearly $9 for every $1 invested, about half of
    which comes from higher earnings among the children who receive these
    investments. \15\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \14\ Havnes and Mogstad, 2011 AER https://www.aeaweb.org/
    articles?id=10.1257/pol.3.2.97.
         \15\ 2016 Economic Report of the President ``Inequality in Early
    Childhood and Effective Public Policy Interventions''.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        I want to highlight an often-overlooked act of Congress that gave
    some communities in the United States high-quality low-cost childcare
    for a temporary period. The ``Defense Housing and Community Facilities
    and Services Act of 1940''. which was popularly known as the Lanham
    Act, funded childcare in communities with defense industries. All
    families, regardless of income, were eligible for what was high quality
    childcare at a low cost. Research into the childcare that was provided
    as a result of Congressional funding found that family bonds were
    strengthened, children enjoyed the childcare, that the primary goal--
    increasingly mother's employment--was achieved, and that children's
    long-term outcomes were improved. \16\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \16\ Herbst (2017) ``Universal Child Care, Maternal Employment,
    and Children's Long-Run Outcomes: Evidence From the U.S. Lanham Act of
    1940'', Journal of Labor Economics and https://
    obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2015/01/22/experiment-universal-
    child-care-united-states-lessons-lanham-act.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        High-quality early education for all would narrow the achievement
    gap. Dozens of preschool programs have been rigorously examined since
    the 1960s. Overall, across all studies and time periods, early
    childhood education increases cognitive and achievement scores by 0.35
    standard deviations on average, or nearly half the Black-White
    difference in the kindergarten achievement gap. Since higher income
    children are currently more likely to have access to high-quality early
    education, expanding access to all would narrow the achievement gap.
        The Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama did some
    calculations using the findings of the vast body of research on
    preschool as one example of early childhood education. They found that
    if all families were able to enroll their children in preschool at the
    same rate as high-income families, the subsequent earnings gain that
    would accrue had a net present value of $4.8 billion to $16.1 billion
    per cohort even after subtracting the cost of the program. \17\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \17\ https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/
    docs/early--childhood-report-update-final-non-embargo.pdf
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Finally, let me conclude by mentioning the aging population. While
    the past several decades have seen declining fertility rates, completed
    fertility has actually risen since 2006. This rise reflected the burst
    of fertility of women in their late 30s and 40s in the 2000s and 2010s.
    Children are born to mothers at increasingly older ages.
        But in recent years women have reduced their fertility at all ages.
    This is raising concerns that completed fertility among younger
    Millennials will ultimately be lower than that of the previous
    generation. College graduates in middle-class families struggle to pay
    student loans, to save for the downpayment on a home, and to get a
    stronger foothold in the labor market. Women with less education
    struggle to find a job that will pay a living wage, let alone high
    quality early childhood education. The shift to having children at
    older ages reflects the desire by many people to establish their
    careers and achieve financial stability prior to having children.
    Research shows that women's careers and wages stagnate after having
    children, a fact that leads many women to postpone having children as
    long as possible. Women and couples are making decisions about having
    children while considering the challenges of balancing work and
    children, the support they will get from their employer, the difficulty
    in arranging trustworthy childcare, and the financial cost of having
    children.
        In conclusion, women and parents are essential to the success of
    our economy. The majority of college-educated workers in the United
    States are women. This trend will continue since nearly 60 percent of
    those graduating from college today are women-meaning that in a decade
    an even greater share of college-educated workers will be female. It is
    important that policymakers concerned about the macroeconomy understand
    the crucial role that women are playing. But while women are crucial to
    the functioning of our economy, our workplace policies and Government
    policies have not kept up with the emergence of women as primary or co-
    equal household earners.
                                     ______

                     PREPARED STATEMENT OF BERNADETTE NGOH
                   Founder, Trusted Care Family Day Care Home
                                 June 23, 2021
        Good afternoon Senators Warren, Kennedy, and Members of the
    Subcommittee on Economic Policy. My name is Bernadette Ngoh. I am the
    Owner/Director of Trusted Care Family Day Care Home, fondly called Mamu
    Daycare in West Haven, Connecticut. Thank you for this opportunity to
    speak to you today.
        Trusted Care provides quality and affordable childcare services.
    Our mission is to provide childcare in a nurturing environment where
    kids play, explore, and learn at their pace with fervent guidance. This
    gives parents opportunities to work, attend school or participate in
    other functions with peace of mind, knowing that their children are
    Home at Mamu Daycare. We are State-licensed and working toward national
    accreditation.
        I was raised in Southern Cameroon by a single mother, Dorothy
    Akoba, who believed strongly in the value of education even though she
    had no form of formal education. As a peasant farmer and small business
    owner, she worked hard to educate us. I am the first girl in my family
    to go to college. I received a LLB in English Private Law from the
    University of Yaounde II SOA, Cameroon, and a Diploma in Women's Law
    from the University of Zimbabwe. I attended the University of
    Bridgeport, where I earned a Master of Science in Counseling,
    Professional Diploma for Advanced Study with specialization in
    Counseling and Master of Business Administration.
        Up until 2010 I was an Adjunct Professor at the University of
    Bridgeport in the great State of Connecticut. In 2011 I had twins. I
    looked around for quality and affordable daycare, but the reality of
    the times motivated me to start one in 2012. Our program gave me the
    opportunity to care for my own children. With my kids as partners, we
    tested most of the activities that characterize our program as it is
    today: outdoor learning, the untapped learning space for kids. Our
    activities offer kids opportunity to play, explore, exercise, and have
    fun as they learn and enforces ``magic'' words and expressions such as:
    ``Thank You,'' ``No thanks,'' ``I'm Sorry.'' Our kids build life
    skills, such as problem solving. Each child irrespective of their zip
    code or the financial standing of their parents and/or guardian has the
    potential of doing what they know to do best. I have the fun, hard job
    of supporting our kids' curiosity, hoping that it will follow them in
    their later ages, their needs will guide their adventures, their
    innocence will last a little while and love, truth, and hard work will
    pave the way for the next generation of Senators, CEOs, engineers,
    doctors, and teachers. Oh, how I love my job! Oh, how hard my job is!
    Oh, how even harder it is for the kids, especially kids 6 weeks through
    5 years. Each day the kids leave for work, sometimes very early in the
    morning to give Mom, Dad, or their guardian time to be the essential
    heroes they are: decision makers, CEOs, doctors and other health care
    workers, scientists, IT engineers, farmers, and grocery store workers.
    The kids, as well as their parents, are heroes. They get up early, go
    to work on time and oftentimes are obligated to work extended hours to
    support the job that you are doing. At the daycare, they play hard.
    Playing is a ``factory'' for learning. Daycare educators provide
    families with an environment that helps children be the best they can
    be, that helps them learn to fly. I support children's language
    development, social/emotional development, and behavior. Character is a
    scarce commodity that has its roots in early child education.
        Before the pandemic, the youngest child in my care was about 3;
    most of the children ranged from ages 3 to 8. I lost business,
    enrollment fell and attendance dropped. Today my youngest is about 18
    months, one is 2 years old and the majority are between the ages of 3
    and 10.
        The pandemic was tough--it hit us so hard. We quarantined twice. My
    husband got extremely sick, and it was scary. We were not sure he was
    going to make it. I became sick too. But eventually we both recovered
    and were able to go back to work.
        A parent lost his job and pulled his child out of daycare. Other
    parents shared their difficulties of paying for additional expenditures
    (mask and sanitizers) with their budgets. I suspended collection of
    out-of-pocket family fees from most of the subsidized parents. I had
    several unfilled slots at the daycare. It's tough financially--you're
    just wondering, ``if I don't take this child [for free], I may lose
    them when they get subsidy.'' Then I look at parents. They have even
    less than me and I can see some of them are struggling. I run a 24/7
    childcare program, which helped with my income but meant very long
    hours during the pandemic.
        We might be getting out of the pandemic but the day-to-day
    struggles of struggling families date back to before COVID-19 pandemic,
    and they require a lot, especially from family childcare providers. We
    are not only educators, but also business people, nurses, counselors,
    and social workers for parents as well as children, I have parents with
    kids who are paid about $475 a week and could not afford diapers,
    wipes, and taxi fares to daycare or work on stormy days. One works a
    late shift, picks her child up late and has a long walk to and from the
    bus. She is barely surviving. As hollow as I see my unmet financial
    needs, the struggles of a parent like this one add to my duties. It is
    the ``unseen labor'' of many childcare providers. I buy diapers to
    supplement what she can afford. I arrange for her to be dropped off at
    the bus stop and home when she is running late, the weather is not
    favorable or when it too late in the night to be pushing the stroller
    with the baby. To do my job, I must be able to shift quickly from one
    role to the next, drawing on all the knowledge and skills I have gained
    from continuous training and experience to support that parent and her
    child.
        True, it takes a community to raise a child, but learning begins at
    home. Due to the changing nature of our work, family daycare homes have
    become homes where most of the foundation for learning begins.
    Sometimes childcare providers spend more time with children than their
    parents. Providers spend ``day-time'' time with our children. We are
    among the first people who will impact the lives of children in ways
    that will determine tomorrow's society.
        How do we place a value on this work? Is it as important as the
    work of doctors or policemen? Let's look at remuneration. If I became
    sick and closed my doors tomorrow, five parents would not be able to
    work. And I would not receive sick pay, disability benefits or a
    pension if I were older.
        When the pandemic hit, schools and childcare centers closed their
    doors, but family childcare stayed open. We were recognized as
    essential workers, but we are not supported the way other essential
    workers are. Senators, without us most of you could not be working.
    Childcare providers taught you. We are teaching your children and
    grandchildren, nieces and nephews their first words. Jeff Bezos
    wouldn't be working either. And even our businesses, hospitals and
    police officers would not be at work if we close our daycare programs.
    This is the multiplier effect of childcare on the economy.
        Building a strong childcare infrastructure is long overdue. Our
    country has been pennywise, and pound foolish. If we do not build a
    strong foundation, there will be cracks that will be much more
    expensive to fix later. Investments in childcare now also enable us to
    save more later, when children become adults and their challenges are
    much more costly to address. A stitch in time save nine.
        As a daycare provider, parent, and a business owner I am submitting
    that:

        Our country has a childcare infrastructure problem.

        Investment in childcare infrastructure will provide
            immediate and long-term economic benefit.

        Childcare providers cannot afford to do this work, parents
            can't afford to pay for it, and children are missing out on the
            nurturing and support they need to thrive.

        We need professional development and compensation to retain
            experienced childcare educators in the field.

        You have an awesome responsibility: voters are asking you
            to rebuild America's infrastructure in the wake of the
            pandemic. Every dollar you invest in childcare--including
            family childcare programs like mine--generates significant
            economic benefit. The danger is not in investing too much, but
            in investing too little.

        We need high-quality care for all children from birth to 5, and
    equitable access to funding so that all families can enroll their
    children in the childcare program of their choice. For the sake of our
    future, I urge you to invest as much new funding as possible in
    rebuilding the childcare infrastructure over the next decade.
                                     ______

                     PREPARED STATEMENT OF RACHEL GRESZLER
      Research Fellow in Economics, Budget and Entitlements, The Heritage
                                   Foundation
                                 June 23, 2021

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                    PREPARED STATEMENT OF ABBY M. MCCLOSKEY
                  Founder and Principal, McCloskey Policy, LLC
                                 June 23, 2021
        Chair Warren, Ranking Member Kennedy, and Members of the Committee,
    thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I have spent most of my
    career focused on policies to improve upward economic mobility and to
    support working families, including paid parental leave and childcare.
        In the testimony that follows, I will discuss the economic impact
    of childcare for parents and children, review the current policy
    landscape and proposals for reform, and turn to policy principles and
    recommendations.
    The Childcare Challenges Facing American Families
        To understand the childcare challenges that face working families,
    it is helpful to consider the dramatic evolution of work and family
    over the last 60 years. Since 1960, the share of U.S. households headed
    by single parents has more than tripled, with unmarried parents now
    representing approximately one-third of American households. \1\ The
    majority of women participate in the labor force, and mothers are now
    the sole or main breadwinners in 40 percent of American families,
    according to the Pew Research Center. \2\ Globalization and
    technological advances have depressed wage growth for America's low-
    wage workers relative to higher earners. \3\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \1\ Pew Research Center, ``The American Family Today'', 2015,
    https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2015/12/17/1-the-american-
    family-today/.
         \2\ Pew Research Center, ``In Four in Ten Families, Mom Is the
    Primary Breadwinner'', 2015, https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/
    2015/12/17/parenting-in-america/st-2015-12-17-parenting-20/.
         \3\ Brookings Institute, ``Middle Class Income and Wages'',
    https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2020/01/24/charts-of-the-
    week-middle-class-income-and-wages/.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        This has created new tensions around work and care that public
    policy and markets have failed to adequately address. In particular,
    access to affordable and high-quality childcare is out of reach for
    many families. Childcare costs are higher than the costs of college,
    food, and housing in many parts of the country. \4\ For parents living
    in poverty, childcare costs can consume up to 30 percent (or more) of
    their monthly income. \5\ Research by the Center for American Progress
    has identified what it deems ``childcare deserts''--areas where there
    is little or no access to licensed childcare providers. \6\ Providing
    high quality care inside the home is also difficult. For many families,
    it is not financially possible for a parent to be the primary caregiver
    for their child even in the first few weeks of life, let alone in the
    years before a child reaches elementary school. A Department of Labor
    study found that one in four women return to work within two weeks of
    giving birth, and few fathers take any time off at all. \7\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \4\ Childcare Aware of America, ``The U.S. and the High Price of
    Childcare: 2019 Report''. https://www.childcareaware.org/our-issues/
    research/the-us-and-the-high-price-of-child-care-2019/.
         \5\ Lynda Laughlin, ``Who's Minding the Kids? Child Care
    Arrangements: Spring 2011'' (U.S. Department of Commerce, April 2,
    2013), www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p70-135.pdf.
         \6\ Aparna Mathur and Abby McCloskey, ``The American Dream in
    2020'', AEI Paper https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/the-
    american-dream-in-2020-how-to-strengthen-it/.
         \7\ AEI-Brookings, ``Paid Leave an Issue Whose Time Has Come'',
    2017, https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/paid-family-and-
    medical-leave-an-issue-whose-time-has-come/.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Lack of access to affordable, high-quality childcare exerts
    pressure on the economy in two main ways: First, it impacts parents'
    economic opportunity. There is a large literature showing that high
    childcare costs are associated with less work among mothers. In a
    review of the literature, economist Jean Kimmel found that a 10 percent
    increase in childcare costs is associated with a 2.0 percent to 7.4
    percent decrease in women's employment. \8\ Policies that offset
    childcare costs are associated with increased employment and reduced
    dependence on Government welfare. Using data from the 1999 National
    Survey of America's Families, David Blau and Erdal Tekin found that
    childcare subsidies for welfare recipients resulted in a 13-percentage-
    point increase in the likelihood of employment for single mothers. \9\
    Another study found that the introduction of subsidized childcare in
    Quebec in the late 1990s resulted in a significant employment boost for
    married women. \10\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \8\ Aparna Mathur and Abby McCloskey, ``How To Improve Economic
    Opportunity for Women'', AEI Research Paper, 2014, https://www.aei.org/
    wp-content/uploads/2014/07/-how-to-improve-economic-opportunity-for-
    women--120143477839.pdf?x91208.
         \9\ David Blau and Erdal Tekin, ``The Determinants and
    Consequences of Child Care Subsidies for Single Mothers'', Journal of
    Population Economics 20, no. 4 (May 2003): 719-41.
         \10\ Michael Baker, Jonathan Gruber, and Kevin Milligan,
    ``Universal Childcare, Maternal Labor Supply, and Family Well-Being'',
    Journal of Political Economy 116, no. 4 (2008): 709-45.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        The high cost of care likely impacts childbearing rates, reducing
    the size of the future labor force. A recent New York Times survey
    found that the most common reason young adults are having fewer
    children is that ``childcare is too expensive'' (64 percent of
    respondents). \11\ Lack of paid parental leave is associated with an
    uptick in welfare use for new mothers and reduced wages upon returning
    to work. \12\ According to Francine D. Blau and Lawrence M. Kahn, about
    28 percent of the decline in female labor force participation in
    America relative to other countries in the Organisation for Economic
    Cooperation and Development (OECD) can be explained by the Nation's
    lack of family-friendly workplace policies, including paid parental
    leave and childcare. \13\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \11\ Claire Cain Miller, ``Americans Are Having Fewer Babies. They
    Told Us Why'', New York Times, July 5, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/
    2018/07/05/upshot/americans-are-having-fewer-babies-they-told-us-
    why.html.
         \12\ AEI-Brookings, ``Paid Leave an Issue Whose Time Has Come'',
    2017, https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/paid-family-and-
    medical-leave-an-issue-whose-time-has-come/.
         \13\ Ibid.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Second, lack of access to high-quality care--both inside the home
    and outside of it--impacts children's economic outcomes. While all
    children would benefit from high quality care in their early
    developmental years, it is least available for disadvantaged children
    whose families often can neither afford high-quality care options
    outside the home nor do they have access to such options inside the
    home.
        Research pioneered by Nobel-prize winning economist James Heckman
    has found that investment in early childhood care for disadvantaged
    families has lifelong economic implications for children, impacting
    their health, education, and professional outcomes. \14\ His research
    has primarily centered around two intensive and highly targeted early
    childhood development programs--the Perry Preschool Project and the
    Carolina Abecedarian Project--which focused on low-income Black
    children and their families in the 1960s and 1970s, providing in-home
    coaching and wraparound services in addition to high-quality preschool.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \14\ James Heckman, ``Invest in Early Childhood Development'',
    https://heckmanequation.org/www/assets/2013/07/F-
    HeckmanDeficitPieceCUSTOM-Generic-052714-3-1.pdf.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Heckman's most recent research found that these gains continued
    across generations, with improvements in education, employment, crime,
    school suspensions, and health for the children of those who had
    participated in the Perry Preschool Project. \15\ This suggests that
    investments in early childhood care and education, properly structured
    and targeted, could be a critical tool to unlock intergenerational
    upward mobility and economic opportunity. Furthermore, investments in
    early childhood have shown greater gains in economic opportunity than
    investments in adolescence and adulthood, suggesting that we would
    benefit from shifting our policy interventions to earlier in life. \16\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \15\ Heckman, James, and Ganesh Karapakula. ``Intergenerational
    and Intragenerational Externalities of the Perry Preschool Project'',
    2019.
         \16\ James Heckman, ``Catch 'em Young'', Wall Street Journal,
    2006, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB113686119611542381.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Current Policy Landscape
        The current policy landscape for childcare is far from bare. Many
    Government programs subsidize childcare; however, none provide
    comprehensive support.
        The Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) is administered by the
    Department of Health and Human Services and provides block grants to
    the States to assist low-income families in attaining childcare for
    children under the age of 13. Federal law states that children are
    eligible for services under CCDF if their family income is at or below
    85 percent of the State median income; however, the majority of States
    set eligibility limits below that. Families currently on welfare,
    specifically Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), are
    usually given priority for the funds, leaving low-income families on
    the verge of welfare without service. \17\ Economists Mezey,
    Schumacher, and Greeberg found that fewer than 30 percent of those
    leaving welfare were receiving a childcare subsidy. \18\ A 2021 GAO
    report found that only 4 percent to 18 percent of federally eligible
    children were receiving CCDF subsidies. \19\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \17\ Aparna Mathur and Abby McCloskey, ``How To Improve Economic
    Opportunity for Women'', AEI Research Paper, 2014, https://www.aei.org/
    wp-content/uploads/2014/07/-how-to-improve-economic-opportunity-for-
    women-120143477839.pdf?x91208.
         \18\ Jennifer Mezey, Mark Greenberg, and Rachel Schumacher, ``The
    Vast Majority of Federally Eligible Children Did Not Receive Child Care
    Assistance in FY 2000'', (Center for Law and Social Policy, October
    2002), www.clasp.org/resources-and-publications/archive/0108.pdf.
         \19\ GAO, ``Child Care Eligibility and Receipt, and Waitlist'',
    2021, https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-245r.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit provides a nonrefundable
    tax credit ranging from 20 to 35 percent for eligible childcare costs;
    costs that are capped at $3,000 for one child and $6,000 for two or
    more children (this was temporarily increased $8,000 and $16,000 and
    made refundable as part of pandemic relief). The permanent limits are
    only 1.5 times the 1976 values, considerably less than the rate of
    inflation or the growth in childcare costs. And the credit is
    nonrefundable, which presents a challenge for low-income families who
    might not have income tax liability against which to claim the credit.
        There is also an employer-based childcare tax exclusion. Under this
    exclusion, employees can set aside $5,000 from their pretax salary for
    childcare expenses. Employers can choose whether or not to offer the
    exclusion. Higher-income families generally benefit more from the
    exclusion, since the excluded income avoids both income and payroll
    taxes.
        Several other Government support programs may offset the cost of
    childcare, albeit indirectly. For example, the Child Tax Credit is a
    tax credit of up to $2,000 per child under the age of 17 (temporarily
    increased to $3,600 per child under age 6 from pandemic-related
    legislation). Presumably, this could be used to offset some of the
    costs of childcare, but mostly for middle-class families with tax
    liabilities. The Tax Policy Center found that families in the bottom
    quintile are the least likely to receive a credit, and when they do, it
    is smaller than for higher income families because the credit is not
    fully refundable. \20\ Additionally, the Earned Income Tax Credit
    (EITC) may be used to offset childcare-related expenses for low-income
    families, although it need not be used for this purpose.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \20\ Tax Policy Center, ``Tax Policy Center Briefing Book'', 2018,
    https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/briefing-book/
    taxes-and-the-family.pdf.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Last but not least, the Head Start program is the Nation's largest
    Federal program providing early childhood education for disadvantaged 3
    and 4 year olds. Results on the efficacy of Head Start program have
    been mixed, with some studies showing positive effects and others
    finding that gains fade over time. \21\ Moreover, in the same way that
    the quality of K-12 schools varies widely across the country, the
    quality of various Head Start programs also varies widely. A 2013
    National Institute for Early Education study found that 60 percent of
    Head Start centers were rated as medium to low quality, with Black
    children over-represented in lower quality programs. \22\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \21\ HHS, ``Head Start Impact Report'', 2010, https://
    www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/report/head-start-impact-study-final-report-
    executive-summary.
         \22\ Katharine Stevens and Elizabeth English, ``Does Pre-K Work?''
    AEI Paper, 2016, https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Does-
    Pre-K-Work.pdf?x91208.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Current Proposals for Reform
        Even in our polarized political climate, the challenges of access
    to high-quality childcare are widely recognized. As such, there have
    been a number of proposals put forward by political leaders across the
    ideological spectrum to improve investments in childcare.
        On the political Right, many of these proposals have involved
    shifting the timing of existing tax credits (Child Tax Credit) or
    retirement benefits (Social Security) to be accessed upon having young
    children in order to help cover the cost of paid leave or childcare;
    setting up tax-advantaged savings accounts to be used for pregnancy,
    paid leave, or childcare expenses, and; providing tax credits to
    companies that provide family-friendly policies, such as paid family
    leave. While these policies benefit from having a small spending
    footprint--an important consideration in our current fiscal
    environment--they keep early childhood care an undersized share of our
    overall Federal portfolio and would provide limited support to the
    neediest families who would not benefit from nonrefundable tax credits
    or tax-advantaged accounts.
        On the political Left, efforts have largely centered around the
    creation of large new public programs, such as universal childcare or
    universal pre-K. Recently, President Biden put forward the American
    Families Plan, which among other provisions, includes universal
    preschool for 3 and 4 year olds, a larger and refundable Child and
    Dependent Care Tax Credit, an expanded Child Tax Credit, a $15 minimum
    wage, and a national 12-week paid leave policy for family and medical
    reasons. Too often these proposals overlook the existing policies that
    are in place, come at a tremendous cost to taxpayers (and the future
    generations likely to pay for our historic debt burden), and go beyond
    what research suggests would be most beneficial for parents and
    children. Proposals for universal public preschool at times seem to
    overlook the emergent issues in our public K-12 system, which is
    falling behind our global peers, or Head Start where results have been
    less robust than in more targeted programs. We shouldn't add to the
    system without trying to better understand how to make the existing one
    work better.
        Other reforms have focused on increasing pay and benefits for
    childcare providers. On average, the median hourly wage for childcare
    workers was $10.72 in 2017, and half of childcare workers are on a
    public assistance program relative to 21 percent for the workforce.
    \23\ Increased opportunities for skills-attainment would help to
    support higher wages and professional advancement for care providers.
    Multiple States--including West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Colorado--
    have begun to implement registered apprenticeship programs for early
    childhood educators. These programs provide early childhood educators
    with on-the-job training and a career pathway to improve their
    knowledge and skills. They create more opportunities for workers to
    move into roles of greater responsibility and pay, a virtuous cycle
    resulting in higher quality care. \24\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \23\ Bipartisan Policy Center, ``Registered Apprenticeships: A
    Viable Career Path for Early Childhood Educators'', 2019, https://
    bipartisanpolicy.org/download/?file=/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/BPC-
    Early-Childhood-Issue-Brief-RV4.pdf.
         \24\ Ibid.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Mandating higher wages and benefits may inadvertently reduce the
    number of care providers that centers can employ further contributing
    to the shortage of care. Increased costs are also likely to be passed
    onto parents, many of whom are low-wage earners themselves and already
    struggling with access and affordability of care. According to the
    Center for American Progress, more than half of Hispanic families live
    in childcare deserts, and the cost of center-based childcare for two
    young children consumes 56 percent of median household income for Black
    families. \25\ Higher care costs could result in at-risk families
    moving to lower quality or informal care providers or needing to leave
    the labor force entirely. For entry-level care providers, wage support
    through programs such as the EITC and a tightening labor market from
    economic growth would boost wages without limiting the supply of care.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \25\ Center for American Progress, ``How Child Care Disruptions
    Hurt Parents of Color The Most'', 2020, https://
    www.americanprogress.org/issues/early-childhood/news/2020/06/29/486977/
    child-care-disruptions-hurt-parents-color/.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        While proposed policy solutions differ widely, there is bipartisan
    recognition of the need for reform and a recognition of the economic
    benefits from high quality care for parents and children. This suggests
    that there is a way forward that could garner broad support.
    Principles and Recommendations for Moving Forward
        As policymakers weigh varying investments in early childhood care
    in the postpandemic economy, I'd like to put forward five principles to
    guide the discussion to common ground:
    1. The benefits of high-quality early childhood investment are most
            pronounced for disadvantaged children and their parents. We
            should focus our investment here.
        The literature shows tremendous gains from targeted care
    investments for disadvantaged children. As stated earlier, Heckman has
    found 7 percent to 13 percent annual return on investment from early
    childhood interventions in economically disadvantaged families,
    including improved educational and career prospects as well as reduced
    health and criminal expenses. \26\ Recent research by Heckman and
    others has found that the children of those who attended such programs
    also exhibit improved outcomes, suggesting that investment in early
    childhood education could be an unlock for intergenerational economic
    opportunity. \27\ This could be particularly powerful if paired with
    economist Raj Chetty's research on upward mobility to target early
    childhood interventions by neighborhood.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \26\ James Heckman, ``Invest in Early Childhood Development'',
    https://heckmanequation.org/www/assets/2013/07/F-
    HeckmanDeficitPieceCUSTOM-Generic-052714-3-1.pdf.
         \27\ Heckman, James, and Ganesh Karapakula. ``Intergenerational
    and Intragenerational Externalities of the Perry Preschool Project'',
    2019.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        In contrast, the research on universal childcare and preschool
    programs is mixed. Some studies have found negative effects when full-
    time, center-based care becomes the norm and other care solutions are
    removed. For example, Quebec's universal childcare program has been
    associated with negative outcomes for children on a variety of
    behavioral and health dimensions, including increased aggression,
    physical illness, and lower quality parental relationships. \28\ Other
    studies, including a 2021 NBER working paper on the effects of
    universal preschool in Boston have found improvements in college-going,
    college preparation, standardized test scores, and behavioral outcomes
    from access to pre-K. \29\ This suggests universal pre-K and universal
    childcare are an over-reach relative to the current evidence base, and
    resources are best targeted towards at-risk families.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \28\ Michael Baker, Jonathan Gruber, and Kevin Milligan,
    ``Universal Childcare, Maternal Labor Supply, and Family Well-Being'',
    Journal of Political Economy 11, no. 4 (2008): 709-45.
         \29\ Guthrie Gray-Lobe, Parag A. Pathak, Christopher R. Walters,
    ``The Long-Term Effects of Universal Preschool in Boston'', 2021,
    http://www.nber.org/papers/w28756.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    2. Policymakers should seek to maximize care options for parents
            instead of one-size-fits-all solutions.
        While there is a strong case for public investment in early
    childhood care for disadvantaged families, this does not translate to a
    one-size-fits-all public program. Childcare needs and values vary
    widely. As such, policymakers should seek to create more care options
    for families, rather than fewer.
        One of the most promising channels for reform in the childcare
    space is an expansion of the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, such
    as that proposed by President Biden in the American Families Plan, and
    along the lines of what I've proposed with my former colleagues Aparna
    Mathur and Angela Rachidi at the American Enterprise Institute. \30\
    Tax credits for childcare can be thought of as a school choice program
    for early childhood care and education. Parents who need care outside
    of the home can choose to send their children to center-based care,
    help pay for a nanny, enroll their children in a religious program, a
    dual language class, all of which could be full-time, or part-time, or
    something in between. An expanded CDCTC would allow for a proliferation
    of different types of programs in response to parental preferences and
    negate the need for a universal, public program. A refundable credit
    would benefit low-income families, for whom childcare costs are a
    barrier to work and high-quality care outside the home is financially
    prohibitive.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \30\ Aparna Mathur and Abby McCloskey, ``Fostering Upward Economic
    Mobility in the United States'', AEI Research Paper, 2014, https://
    www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/-fostering-upward-economic-
    mobility-in-the-united-states-151727618007.pdf?x91208.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Some have argued that offsetting childcare expenses pushes parents
    into the labor force and away from the home. This overlooks the costs
    of working, such as payroll and income taxes that working parents incur
    and stay-at-home parents do not.
    3. New programs should take into account existing programs and make
            sure new spending is paid for.
        We must be judicious with our spending priorities as well as with
    our pay-fors. The Federal debt is already at historic levels and that's
    before an infrastructure package or any further Government spending.
    Federal debt held by the public is equal to the size of our entire GDP.
    \31\ Moreover, we are not starting from scratch in the childcare space.
    As outlined in Section II, there are childcare block grants to the
    States, Head Start, the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, the Child
    Tax Credit, tax credits to employers and more.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \31\ CBO, ``The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2021-2031'', https://
    www.cbo.gov/publication/56991.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        New programs should seek to rationalize the existing landscape of
    Federal and State policy to prevent duplication, waste, and overlap.
    For example, an expansion of the Child and Dependent Tax Credit could
    be paired with a streamlining of existing policies. In our AEI paper,
    ``Improving Economic Opportunity for Women'', Mathur and I propose
    substantially increasing the amount of the CDCTC and making it
    refundable. This would reduce the need for CCDF and employer-sponsored
    tax credits, making childcare support available regardless of employer
    options or State policies. \32\ While all of us would appreciate an
    offset in childcare costs or a child allowance expansion, it is
    particularly important for low-income and disadvantaged families; this
    suggests that we should have a relatively tight income limit on tax
    credit eligibility.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \32\ Aparna Mathur and Abby McCloskey, ``How To Improve Economic
    Opportunity for Women'', AEI Research Paper, 2014, https://www.aei.org/
    wp-content/uploads/2014/07/-how-to-improve-economic-opportunity-for-
    women-120143477839.pdf?x91208.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Some have argued that investments in care programs would pay for
    themselves given that society is already bearing the burden of
    underinvestment in early childhood. Importantly, this has not been the
    case with our existing public preschool programs, even those targeted
    towards at-risk children, such as Head Start. In the words of Heckman,
    ``there is little basis for providing universal programs at zero
    cost.'' \33\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \33\ James Heckman, ``Catch 'em Young'', Wall Street Journal,
    2006, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB113686119611542381.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    4. We should make it easier for parents to spend time with infants.
        While much of the discussion on childcare focuses on care outside
    the home, care inside the home is vitally important. In her book, What
    Children Need, Columbia University economist Jane Waldfogel finds that
    a parent being actively present during the first year of a child's life
    is linked to a host of positive emotional, physical, and mental health
    outcomes for children.
        Yet the status quo makes it very difficult for parents to spend
    this critical time with their children, especially low-income parents
    who have a thin financial margin and lack access to benefits such as
    paid leave from their employers. Fewer than one in five workers have
    access to paid parental leave from their employers, and 40 percent of
    workers lack job protection following the birth of a child. \34\ As a
    result, one in four mothers returns to work within two weeks after
    having a child, and many fathers take no time off of work at all. \35\
    The impact is significant, from reduced rates of breastfeeding to one
    of the highest rates of neonatal fatalities in the developed world.
    \36\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \34\ AEI-Brookings, ``Paid Leave an Issue Whose Time Has Come'',
    2017, https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/paid-family-and-
    medical-leave-an-issue-whose-time-has-come/.
         \35\ Ibid.
         \36\ Ibid.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        A modest Federal paid parental leave policy would protect those
    early weeks between parents and infants and has been supported by the
    bipartisan AEI-Brookings paid leave working group (in which I'm a
    member). \37\ While there have been calls for more expansive leave
    packages for family and medical purposes, the most pronounced benefits
    in the paid leave literature accrue from paid parental leave. As such,
    we should unbundle this from the other leave policies and prioritize
    its implementation.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \37\ Ibid.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Boosting wages through wage subsidies such as the Earned Income Tax
    Credit and economic growth also would allow parents to scale back hours
    to spend more time at home, while helping to ensure that one or both
    parents remain attached to the labor force. Additionally, the most
    successful early childhood care interventions have also been paired
    with in-home visits and parental coaching, suggesting that care inside
    the home and outside of it are dynamic complements, and the latter does
    not negate the former. \38\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \38\ James Heckman, ``Invest in Early Childhood Development'',
    https://heckmanequation.org/www/assets/2013/07/F-
    HeckmanDeficitPieceCUSTOM-Generic-052714-3-1.pdf.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    5. We should address the supply side of care to bring down costs.
        One potential contributor to heightened childcare costs is the
    decline in the supply of providers. A 2019 report noted a 35 percent
    decline in small family childcare providers from 2011 to 2017 and a
    concurrent decline in large family care providers by 8 percent. \39\
    This could, in part, be the result of childcare regulation. As with
    occupational licensing measures, safety and quality standards are
    crucial; however, overly burdensome restrictions that may prevent
    otherwise qualified care providers from entering the market. \40\
    Therefore, a care package should include incentives for States to
    streamline their care regulations to ensure children are receiving
    optimal care and other burdens are removed so that consumers (i.e.,
    parents) do not wind up paying the high price.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         \39\ Aparna Mathur and Abby McCloskey, ``The American Dream in
    2020'', AEI Paper https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/the-
    american-dream-in-2020-how-to-strengthen-it/.
         \40\ Ibid.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Additionally, more attention is needed to increase the supply,
    retention, and advancement of care providers. As discussed in Section
    IV, apprenticeships and vocational training for care providers are
    promising solutions to increase the supply of caregivers, as well as
    improve their skills and wages. Multiple States have begun
    experimenting with access to registered apprenticeship programs for
    early childhood educators.
    Conclusion
        To conclude, childcare impacts the economy through parental
    participation in the labor force as well as children's developmental
    outcomes. These impacts are particularly pronounced for disadvantaged
    families. While there are many existing Government programs that seek
    to offset childcare costs and increase access to care, these programs
    are not comprehensive and have left out many low-income families. As
    policymakers weigh how to improve the childcare landscape in the
    postpandemic economy, investments in early childhood care for at-risk
    families should be at the core of Federal childcare policy given their
    well-documented record of generating significant economic returns,
    upward mobility, and improved labor force attachment. New programs
    should take into account existing policy and seek to create more
    options for high-quality care--both inside the home and outside of it--
    instead of one-size-fits-all solutions.

           RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR KENNEDY
                          FROM RACHEL GRESZLER

    Q.1. How has COVID-19 impacted women's employment and economic
    activity?

    A.1. Initially, early in the pandemic, women lost more jobs
    than men. They were also more likely to drop out of the labor
    force to stay home with children when schools and daycare
    centers closed.
        In the first 2 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, women's
    employment was down by 1.2 million more than men's. But as of
    June 2021, men's employment is actually down by 252,000 more
    than women's. Female unemployment peaked at 16.1 percent in
    April 2020 as men's hit 13.6 percent. Yet today, the
    unemployment rate among women is lower than among men (5.7
    percent vs. 6.0 percent).
        And while women's labor force participation rate has
    declined slightly more than men's since the pandemic began (1.7
    percentage points vs. 1.6), women's 5.3 percent increase in
    earnings is more than twice that of men's 2.2 percent gain.

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Not only have women largely recovered from those initial
    disparities, but the workplace changes brought on by the
    pandemic will arguably propel women forward in the workplace,
    as opposed to setting them back.

    Q.2. Due to the pandemic, many childcare providers were forced
    to close their doors. According to The Chamber of Commerce,
    over 70 percent of working parents with children younger than 6
    years old stayed home throughout the year. Additionally, with
    greater accessibility to childcare, 68 percent of employed
    parents say they'd be able to work more. Question: Has the
    pandemic and childcare struggles disproportionately impacted
    parents' employment?

    A.2. Yes, parents' work was disproportionately impacted at the
    beginning of the pandemic. In large part, their hours were
    affected (having to cut back on them by an average of 8 hours
    per week), and to a lesser degree some had to stop working
    entirely. Somewhat surprisingly, this is no longer the case and
    parents' employment has been less impacted than nonparents.

    Q.3. How have working parents been disproportionately affected
    by both the pandemic and issues related to childcare?

    A.3. At first, childcare center and school closures meant many
    parents had to cut back on work or stop working entirely. But
    most childcare centers opened long before public schools. And
    fortunately, many families found alternatives to childcare
    providers through the use of family- and friends-care.
        Surprisingly, a study by Jason Furman, et al. (Furman is a
    former Chair of President Obama's Council of Economic
    Advisers), found that, as of May 2021, working parents with
    young children were actually less likely than workers without
    young children to have experienced declines in employment.

    Q.4. The American Families Plan, Biden's proposal, would invest
    $200 billion into universal preschool for all 3 to 4 years
    old--saving the average family $13,000 and assist 5 million
    children. Senator Warren's $700 billion proposal would expand
    federally offered childcare, Head Start, to establish a
    ``universal system for families'' who don't qualify for their
    services. Thus, wealthy families who could afford childcare
    would be eligible for a Federal subsidy. Question: Who stands
    to benefit most from a universal, subsidized childcare for all
    proposal?

    A.4. Wealthy and affluent families have stronger preferences
    for center-based childcare and thus would be most likely to
    benefit from these proposals. Moreover, wealthier families
    living in high-cost areas would likely receive the highest
    subsidy amounts as annual daycare costs often exceed $20,000
    per child in large cities.

    Q.5. Who stands to benefit from universal childcare help the
    most? And how would this proposal truly benefit both childcare
    workers and families?

    A.5. Wealthier families with two earners, and also single-
    parent families, would benefit the most from universal
    Government childcare programs. The proposal to mandate higher
    wages for childcare workers would benefit some, but not all
    childcare workers, as the Government-directed childcare centers
    would provide higher wages while workers who prefer to care for
    children in smaller, family-based, and religious centers (or
    who do not live in areas where large providers exist) would be
    less likely to qualify for the subsidies and thus higher wages.
    Moreover, the proposal to mandate that childcare workers in
    programs receiving subsidies have the equivalent education of
    kindergarten teachers would effectively eliminate the jobs of
    many childcare workers who do not have college degrees and are
    likely not in positions to get them.
        Evidence from Quebec shows widespread Government-subsidized
    childcare harms children and families. There is similar
    evidence from within the U.S. in targeted lower-income
    subsidized programs. And recently, evidence from Chicago and
    Trenton, New Jersey, show the unintended consequences of
    creating two-tiered systems and driving out the provision of
    private, non-Government care, while also diverting funds meant
    to benefit children and families and instead aiding cronyism
    and corruption.

    Q.6. President Biden's proposal also includes a $15 an hour
    wage for everyone working in the Head Start program and pre-K.
    A recent report done by the Heritage Foundation found that this
    could significantly increase the cost of childcare, especially
    in Louisiana. If Congress raised the Federal minimum wage to
    $15 an hour, in Louisiana, this would lead to a 37 percent hike
    in costs. A $5,487 increase in cost for one child enrolled in
    infant care and one child in 4-year-old care. Question: Do you
    know how much it would cost the families in my State of
    Louisiana if Congress were to enact a $15 minimum wage for
    childcare?

    A.6. Currently, the average cost of childcare for an infant in
    Louisiana is $7,728 while care for a 4-year-old is $6,912 per
    year, for a total two-child cost of $14,640. I estimate that a
    $15 minimum wage would increase childcare costs to $10,624 for
    an infant (an increase of $2,896) and to $9,503 for a 4-year-
    old (an increase of $2,591). In total, a family with two
    children in childcare would see their annual costs rise by
    $5,487, from $14,640 to $20,127. It is important to note that
    my estimates of the impact of a $15 minimum wage on childcare
    costs likely represent the lower bound as they only assume that
    workers with wages currently below $15 will receive raises to
    $15 per hour, but in reality, workers with higher wages will
    also have to receive pay raises (including childcare directors)
    in order to maintain a just and competitive compensation
    schedule.
        With the median annual income in Louisiana equal to
    $46,460, a 37 percent increase in childcare costs would impose
    tremendous financial burdens on families. Infant care alone
    would consume 23 percent of an average worker's income, and
    care for an infant and 4-year-old would require 43 percent of
    an average workers' income.

    Q.7. How can current Government funded programs be changed to
    better align with families' needs and kids' well being?

    A.7. The Federal Government already provides significant
    funding for early childhood care and education through
    childcare development block grants and through Head Start.
    Block grant funding should be widely available at providers of
    parents' choices, and Head Start should be made portable, so
    that families can use those funds at a preschool or childcare
    provider of their choice. The reality is that Head Start is not
    a viable childcare solution for working parents as it often
    only provides a few hours of care per day, and yet at about
    $10,000 per student, it costs as much as full-time childcare in
    a majority of States.
        Moreover, State policymakers should examine and remove
    childcare regulations that do not significantly improve the
    safety and quality of care. This would increase the supply of
    providers and lower the cost of care, allowing families to
    choose from more options--including small family and religious
    center providers--that meet their needs and desires.

    Q.8. Shouldn't we prioritize maximizing options for parents
    rather than applying this blanket, one-size-fits-all approach
    to childcare?

    A.8. For parents with young children, there is nothing more
    important than being able to choose who will care for their
    children, and the type of environment in which they leave their
    children. While blanket childcare subsidies will be available
    to almost every family, they will not allow families to choose
    the providers that work best for them. As envisioned,
    Government childcare subsidies will go to childcare centers
    that comply with a litany of costly and unnecessary childcare
    regulations, such as childcare teachers needing to have a
    college degree, Government bureaucrats imposing wage and
    compensation mandates on childcare providers, childcare workers
    being unionized, and the environments and curriculums mandated
    by Government standards instead of parents' preferences.
        Parents have very different preferences for childcare.
    Many--especially lower-income and Hispanic parents prefer for a
    parent to stay home with children. By definition, families that
    choose to have a parent stay home will have lower incomes.
    Families who sacrifice earnings to care for their own kids
    should not also have to sacrifice more income to pay for the
    care of other families' children. It would be far better to
    make it easier for families to pursue childcare and work
    arrangements that are best for them than to impose a blanket
    policy that would disproportionately benefit wealthy and
    affluent families.

    Q.9. Would you think a family's ability to borrow against
    themselves, like borrowing from their future child tax credit
    refund to use as a childcare voucher, would allow them more
    freedom/flexibility to choose a childcare program that best
    suits their needs? What other options should families have
    available to them to help pay for childcare?

    A.9. It would seem, economically, that having the option to
    borrow against a once-a-year tax credit would help families
    manage their weekly and monthly childcare expenses, but there
    are some barriers that would prevent such an option from being
    as effective as desired. Families can be understandably weary
    about borrowing against a future Government benefit; the
    paperwork and bureaucratic process would deter many; and issues
    surrounding the legal custody of children could limit the
    availability of such funds, as well as add to complications and
    improper payments.
        Instead of providing child payments to virtually all
    families--without work requirements and extending payments to
    very high-income families--a more effective way to provide
    families with the resources they need to care for their
    children, and to teach them the importance of work, would be to
    let parents keep more of the money they earn--through broader-
    based and lower-rate taxes.

    Q.10. Do you believe the childcare system needs to be better
    connected to the actual needs of the local workforce and
    community?

    A.10. Yes. What works in a big city like Washington, DC, where
    most jobs are information-based, the costs of living are
    extremely high, and most families have all parents in the
    household working is unlikely to work in rural Kentucky where
    jobs like coal-mining and farming have less regular schedules
    and more parents choose family-based care for their kids.
    Heavily subsidized, Government-directed childcare programs may
    meet the desires of upper-income urban families, but what is
    needed in more rural areas with unique industries is more
    small, in-home family and church-based childcare providers that
    can offer more flexible schedules at lower costs.
        The pandemic showed that local governments are best
    equipped to address the childcare needs of their communities.
    Not only are local and State governments the ones that
    determine childcare regulations, but they have personal
    interactions with their residents and business owners that help
    them know how best to meet their communities' needs. During the
    pandemic, communities such as my own provided targeted funding
    to childcare providers, noting the importance of preventing
    permanent closures. Because local governments regulate
    childcare providers, they already had their information on hand
    and were able to get the information out to these providers
    quickly, and to provide assistance in navigating the
    application process. Meanwhile, the Federal funding proposed in
    the so-called infrastructure package would come with so many
    strings attached that they would be effectively out of reach
    for smaller childcare providers. For example, providers would
    only be able to hire childcare teachers who have college
    degrees, their curriculums would be mandated by Federal
    bureaucrats, and even just accessing Federal funds for
    facilities improvements would require childcare providers to
    comply with ``prevailing wage'' laws that dictate the pay and
    benefits that must be provided to contractors who perform
    facilities improvements.
                                    ------

           RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR KENNEDY
                         FROM ABBY M. MCCLOSKEY

    Q.1. Senator Cassidy (R-LA) and Senator Sinema (D-AZ) have
    introduced a bipartisan proposal to assist working families
    with paid leave or childcare expenses. Question: Do you think
    pushing childcare reform through without bipartisan discussion
    will solve the childcare dilemma in the long-term?

    A.1. It is essential that working families rely on sustainable
    childcare and paid leave policies that will not change
    depending on the political makeup of Congress or the
    Administration. I applaud Senators Cassidy and Sinema for their
    bipartisanship and hope that more Senators engage in similar
    efforts.

    Q.2. What areas of childcare and paid leave policy proposals do
    you believe Democrats and Republicans could compromise on the
    most and why?

    A.2. In terms of childcare, Democrats and Republicans should
    come together to support an expansion of the Child and
    Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) for low and middle-wage
    workers. High childcare costs are a barrier to work and thus a
    barrier to financial independence and upward mobility.
    Additionally, the literature has shown that high-quality
    childcare is particularly important for economically
    disadvantaged children's cognitive development. A CDCTC
    expansion should support a wide variety of early childhood care
    and educational opportunities, including in-home providers,
    religious providers, and center-based care as opposed to a one-
    size-fits-all public program. In this sense, the CDCTC can be
    thought of as a massive school choice or voucher program for
    early childhood education.
        In terms of paid leave, I believe that Democrats and
    Republicans should come together to support a Federal paid
    parental leave policy. A Federal paid parental leave policy
    would deliver significant economic and health benefits to
    parents and infants at a fraction of the cost of a broader paid
    leave policy. An 8-week paid parental leave policy has been
    modeled by the AEI-Brookings Working Group on Paid Leave (which
    I was a part of) and could be paid for in part by reorganizing
    existing spending.
        While some policymakers have proposed a broad paid leave
    policy--inclusive of parental, family, and medical leave--the
    literature is most robust on the benefits of paid parental
    leave, or paid leave upon the birth or adoption of a child. The
    increase in workforce attachment, health improvements for
    mothers and children, and decrease in welfare dependency are
    all specific to paid leave for new parents. The rest of the
    world treats paid parental leave differently from medical or
    family leave. Combining paid parental, family, and medical
    leave into a one-size-fits-all 12 week policy significantly
    expands the cost of the program, gives rise to the potential
    for significant and repeated business interruptions, and has
    stymied bipartisan cooperation on the issue.

    Q.3. How can current Government funded programs be changed to
    better align with families' needs and kids' well being?

    A.3. There are many overlapping and duplicative Government
    offsets for childcare, including but not limited to block
    grants to States, tax credits to employers, and tax credits to
    workers. New programs should seek to rationalize the existing
    landscape of Federal and State policy to prevent duplication,
    waste, and overlap. For example, an expansion of the CDCTC
    could be paired with a streamlining of existing policies. In
    our AEI paper, ``Improving Economic Opportunity for Women'',
    Aparna Mathur and I propose substantially increasing the amount
    of the CDCTC and making it refundable. This would reduce the
    need for block grants and employer-sponsored tax credits,
    making childcare support available regardless of employer
    options or State policies. While all of us would appreciate an
    offset in childcare costs or a child allowance expansion, it is
    particularly important for low-income and disadvantaged
    families; this suggests that we should have a relatively tight
    income limit on tax credit eligibility.

    Q.4. Shouldn't we prioritize maximizing options for parents
    rather than applying this blanket, one-size-fits all approach
    to childcare?

    A.4. Yes. Indeed, maximizing family choice should be a guiding
    principle for childcare reform. Each family's values and needs
    are different. We should seek to maximize choices for families
    both for parental care as well as for care providers outside of
    the home. Options for care outside the home can be increased
    through an expansion of the CDCTC, which in essence functions
    as a large choice program for early childhood care. Options for
    care inside the home by parents can be increased by boosting
    wages for workers through an EITC expansion and economic
    growth. Higher wages would provide families with more
    flexibility to scale back hours or have one parent stay home if
    that's what they wanted to do.

    Q.5. Would you think a family's ability to borrow against
    themselves, like borrowing from their future child tax credit
    refund to use as a childcare voucher, would allow them more
    freedom/flexibility to choose a childcare program that best
    suits their needs? What other options should families have
    available to them to help pay for childcare?

    A.5. It makes sense to increase the flexibility of existing
    Government programs where possible. The expenses for children
    are highest when they are 0-5 years old, when there are work
    interruptions from childbirth, childcare is most expensive for
    infants, and before a child is old enough to be in elementary
    school. Additionally, investments made early in a child's life
    are likely to have a greater return than those made later in a
    child's life, as has been modeled by Nobel-prize winning
    economist James Heckman. Thus, allowing families the choice to
    access more funding up front makes good economic sense.
        I also support offsetting the cost of childcare directly
    through an expansion of the CDCTC.

    Q.6. Do you believe the childcare system needs to be better
    connected to the actual needs of the local workforce and
    community?

    A.6. Yes. Childcare needs and costs vary widely. This is why
    it's important to allow for the proliferation of a wide variety
    of care providers instead of a one-size fit all option. It is
    also why it is important to increase the opportunities for care
    providers based on local needs. Multiple States--including West
    Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Colorado--have begun to implement
    registered apprenticeship programs for early childhood
    educators. These programs provide early childhood educators
    with on-the-job training and a career pathway to improve their
    knowledge and skills. They create more opportunities for
    workers to move into roles of greater responsibility and pay, a
    virtuous cycle resulting in higher quality care. They can also
    be tailored to the specific needs of the community and offered
    in tandem with community colleges and local employers.