[Senate Hearing 117-391]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                    S. Hrg. 117-391

                       CHILD CARE AND PRESCHOOL:
                   CUTTING COSTS FOR WORKING FAMILIES

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

                                 HEARING

                                 OF THE

                    COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION,
                          LABOR, AND PENSIONS

                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                                   ON

   EXAMINING CHILD CARE AND PRESCHOOL, FOCUSING ON CUTTING COSTS FOR 
                            WORKING FAMILIES

                               __________

                             MARCH 22, 2022

                               __________

 Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and 
                                Pensions
                                
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                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
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          COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS

                    PATTY MURRAY, Washington, Chair
BERNIE SANDERS (I), Vermont          RICHARD BURR, North Carolina, 
ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania       Ranking Member
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin             RAND PAUL, M.D., Kentucky
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut   SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
TIM KAINE, Virginia                  BILL CASSIDY, M.D., Louisiana
MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire         LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
TINA SMITH, Minnesota                MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada                  ROGER MARSHALL, M.D., Kansas
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico            TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
JOHN HICKENLOOPER, Colorado          MITT ROMNEY, Utah
                                     TOMMY TUBERVILLE, Alabama
                                     JERRY MORAN, Kansas

                     Evan T. Schatz, Staff Director
               David P. Cleary, Republican Staff Director
                  John Righter, Deputy Staff Director
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                               STATEMENTS

                        TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 2022

                                                                   Page

                           Committee Members

Murray, Hon. Patty, Chair, Committee on Health, Education, Labor, 
  and Pensions, Opening statement................................     1
Burr, Hon. Richard, Ranking Member, a U.S. Senator from the State 
  of North Carolina, Opening statement...........................     4

                               Witnesses

Evans Allvin, Rhian, Chief Executive Officer, National 
  Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), 
  Washington, DC.................................................     7
    Prepared statement...........................................     9
    Summary statement............................................    11
Kashen, Julie, Director, Women's Economic Justice, and Senior 
  Fellow, Century Foundation, New York, NY.......................    12
    Prepared statement...........................................    14
    Summary statement............................................    17
Ballivian, Maria-Isabel, Executive Director, ACCA Child 
  Development Center, Annandale, VA..............................    18
    Prepared statement...........................................    19
    Summary statement............................................    21
Reynolds, Ellen, Chief Executive Officer, Georgia Child Care 
  Association, Sandy Springs, GA.................................    21
    Prepared statement...........................................    24
    Summary statement............................................    27

                          ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.
Murray, Hon. Patty:
    Letters in support of a robust investment in our Nation's 
      childcare sector...........................................    52

 
                       CHILD CARE AND PRESCHOOL:
                   CUTTING COSTS FOR WORKING FAMILIES

                              ----------                              


                        Tuesday, March 22, 2022

                                       U.S. Senate,
       Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m., in 
room 106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Patty Murray, 
Chair of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Murray [presiding], Casey, Murphy, Kaine, 
Hassan, Smith, Rosen, Hickenlooper, Burr, Collins, Murkowski, 
Braun, Scott, and Romney.

                  OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MURRAY

    The Chair. Good Morning. The Senate Health, Education, 
Labor, and Pensions Committee will please come to order. Today 
we are holding a hearing on the need to lower costs for 
families when it comes to childcare and pre-K. I will have an 
opening statement followed by Ranking Member Burr, and then we 
will introduce our witnesses. After they give their testimony, 
Senators will each have 5 minutes for a round of questions.
    Again, while we were unable to have the hearing fully 
opened to the public or media for in-person attendance, live 
video is available on our Committee website at help.senate.gov. 
And if you are in need of accommodations, including closed 
captioning, you can reach out to the Committee or to the Office 
of Congressional Accessibility Services.
    We have made solid progress in rebuilding our economy from 
this pandemic, including historic job growth, but it is clear 
when I listen to people back in Washington State, we have more 
work to do, especially when it comes to bringing down costs 
because the economy isn't just about numbers on a page and 
whether they go up or down, it is about people across the 
country and whether they can get what they need, whether they 
can take care of their loved ones, and whether things are 
working for them and their families.
    When it comes to childcare, things are not working for 
families at all, and they haven't been for some time. In my 
state, childcare costs more than college tuition, and 
nationally 4 out of 10 parents have gone into debt due to the 
cost of childcare, and almost 3 in 10 have had to choose 
between paying for childcare or paying rent.
    It also costs parents when they have to miss work and miss 
a paycheck to take care of their kids, or when they have to 
leave their job altogether since they can't get childcare, 
something that happened to too many women during this pandemic. 
But the scope of the problem goes well beyond cost. Many 
families don't even have the option of getting childcare 
because they don't live near any childcare providers.
    Before this pandemic, half of all Americans lived in a 
childcare desert, communities without enough childcare options. 
Nationally, there are more than five infants and toddlers for 
every one opening. And in rural areas, there are nine children 
for every one opening. And finding childcare options that meet 
their needs is even more challenging still for parents of 
children with disabilities. And this has only been getting 
worse.
    In part because childcare and early education workers are 
dramatically underpaid. Childcare workers, who are most often 
women and overwhelmingly women of color, earn on average $10.72 
an hour, and rarely get benefits they need to take care of 
themselves and their own families, like health care, or paid 
leave, or retirement benefits. That made it hard enough to 
retain high quality childcare workers because they can make 
more an hour at Target or McDonald's. But then COVID hit.
    The pandemic decimated the childcare system, causing an 
estimated 1 out of 10 providers to close their doors and a 
third of workers to be laid off or furloughed. And things would 
have been even worse if Democrats didn't take action in the 
American Rescue Plan to keep our childcare providers open. So 
let's not mince words when it comes to the reality of this 
crisis, our childcare system is fundamentally broken. Families 
are struggling to find and afford childcare options that work 
for them.
    Childcare workers are struggling to make ends meet on 
poverty level wages. Childcare providers are struggling to stay 
open. And the tools that we currently have simply are not up to 
the job of fixing this. Now, there is no question our primary 
Federal child childcare program, the Childcare Development 
Block Grant, has helped many families with low incomes to get 
childcare. But there is also no question it is not enough for 
the task at hand. Right now, CDBG only reaches one in nine kids 
who are eligible for it.
    Put another way, only 15 percent of the children eligible 
for CDBG actually get subsidies, and there are tens of millions 
of families struggling to afford childcare who aren't even 
eligible for CDBG support. So in short, we have got an 
affordability problem. Childcare shouldn't be an extra 
mortgage. A wages problem. Childcare workers are leaving the 
field for higher paying work. And an options problem. There 
just aren't enough providers for most families to find one they 
like.
    This is not just terrible for parents and kids, but our 
economy as a whole. I have heard from businesses across 
Washington State who are losing workers or unable to hire new 
ones because parents can't find childcare. And we are seeing 
this across the country too. Before the pandemic, two-thirds of 
parents said childcare affected their ability to stay in the 
workforce, and a more recent survey found 7 in 10 said 
childcare uncertainty could force them or their partner out of 
their jobs.
    The reality is that when parents can't work because of 
childcare, that is not just a problem for them, it is one more 
position a small business cannot fill, it is one less link in 
our supply chain moving things along, and ultimately, it is one 
more strain on our economy as a whole. That is why Democrats 
have been putting forward bold solutions on childcare. We have 
a fully paid plan to bring down costs for families, bring up 
wages for workers, and give parents across the country more 
freedom to choose the quality childcare options that are right 
for them, including family childcare providers and faith based 
providers, instead of going to debt or opting out of the 
workforce.
    Same with pre-K. Parents of three and 4 year olds will have 
more options to send their kids to quality preschool for free. 
In year one of our plan, two-thirds of working families would 
pay no more than 7 percent of their income for childcare. And 
when it is fully implemented, it would reach 9 in 10 working 
families and save the typical family more than $5,000 a year. 
We would ensure high quality providers of every stripe can pay 
their workers a competitive wage and keep their doors open.
    We want to make sure it is all fully paid for by simply 
asking the wealthiest and those at the top to pay their fair 
share. So my message today is when it comes to childcare, one 
of the big budget items most working families have to navigate, 
the status quo is not working at all for the millions of 
parents who need childcare and the providers who need to 
recruit and retain talented educators, and nothing like the 
status quo is going to cut it. Parents are stressed.
    They are tired of asking, can I choose the provider I 
actually like? Can I afford this every month? Or is it worth me 
going back to work if I have to pay as much rent or mortgage or 
college tuition to send my child to a provider that I trust? Or 
how long am I going to be on this waitlist? What do I do in the 
meantime? I can tell you, as a former preschool teacher, I have 
seen what it means to parents to have those questions answered, 
to have this stress lifted, and to have quality, affordable 
childcare.
    I want that for every parent who is trying to do their job 
and take care of their kids. Let's lower childcare costs for as 
many working parents as we can. Let's offer parents more 
options. Let's provide children with high quality early 
learning experience to help them thrive, and let's help 
businesses fill all those vacancies they have got. Let's work 
toward an economy that actually works for working families, and 
let's do it now because our families and our Country cannot 
afford to keep waiting.
    That is what I am focused on, and I am looking forward to 
hearing from our witnesses today as we discuss this. And before 
I turn it over to Senator Burr, I do have a number of letters I 
want to submit for the record. I have--I seek unanimous consent 
to put in the record 11 letters in support of a robust 
investment in our Nation's childcare sector, including a letter 
from over 3,000 childcare providers, parents, and 
organizations, several letters from faith based organizations, 
a letter from more than 100 economists, a letter from more than 
300 national and state organizations, and a letter from over 
100 retired admirals and generals. So ordered.

    [The following information can be found on page 52 in 
Additional Material:]
    The Chair. Senator Burr.

                   OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BURR

    Senator Burr. Thank you, Madam Chair. I welcome our 
witnesses who are here to testify today. I also want to thank 
every childcare provider in the country for their dedicated--
dedication to children and parents over the last 2 years. Wow, 
I listened to your opening statement, how could you not have 
passed this into law by now? I mean, this sounds like a 
panacea. It is all free. There is no constraints whatsoever.
    If you haven't been accessing health care, I mean childcare 
in the past, it is going to be on every street corner from now 
on. Forty seven weeks ago, this Committee had a productive, 
bipartisan hearing on childcare. In fact, every other hearing 
this Committee has ever held on childcare has been bipartisan.
    Until today. Today we abandoned the precedent of decades of 
bipartisan hearings and markups of crucial legislation such as 
the Childcare Development Block Grant and Head Start for the 
Committee's first partisan childcare hearing on a terrible 
partisan bill. In three--in the 329 days since our last 
bipartisan childcare hearing, rather than seeking a bipartisan 
solution, some have tried to impose their progressive vision, 
which would destroy childcare as we know it.
    Thankfully, that plan has gone nowhere as folks began to 
read the one pager and the talking points and discovered in 
hundreds of pages of legislative text, a bait and switch for 
kids as one Minnesota State Education chair called it. With no 
plan for paying for two new entitlements, the proposal hides 
the long term costs by baiting states with free money in the 
first two or 3 years, then socking the states with ever 
increasing costs just as the Federal spigots cutoff.
    Worse, all the promises to make childcare more affordable 
under this partisan plan are nothing but empty promises to the 
30 to 40 percent of kids living in states that CBO estimated 
would refuse to participate in this new childcare and pre-K 
programs because of an unaffordable cost mandated from 
Washington. And what about families that have to balance their 
own budgets?
    Even some progressive analysts estimate this partisan 
proposal will raise childcare costs by $13,000 a year on middle 
class families. Raise it by $13,000 a year. Finally, faith 
based providers have made it clear that this proposal will end 
the 30 year bipartisan agreement, allowing religious providers 
to participate without compromising their religious mission, 
causing immediate harm to the 53 percent of parents who choose 
to use faith based providers for their childcare. With all 
these concerns raised, we have two paths before us. In one 
path, you continue to go it alone.
    Some will try to bully their own side into submission and 
yell at states and say they won't participate and pretend that 
religious providers were wrong about their inability to 
participate in a poorly designed proposal. Or path two, the 
path our voters sent us up here to take, come to the table in a 
bipartisan way and as has been the history of this Committee 
and seek common ground. I still believe it is possible to 
return to a bipartisan consensus on childcare. Just over 6 
years ago, I worked with Barbara Mikulski on the last CDBG 
reauthorization. Her charge to us was simple. Let's see what we 
can get done.
    Where can we find common ground? Where can we find the 
sensible center? How can we move things forward on a bipartisan 
basis where we add value to the country but don't add debt? 
Boy, strong words. The House passed 88 to 1 in the Senate--the 
bill passed 88 to 1 in the Senate and by voice vote in the 
Republican led House. Whenever one agrees that there is a 
shortage of affordable, quality childcare, it is my belief the 
CDBG is the most sensible center from which to start a 
bipartisan discussion.
    CDBG is the right platform because it has proved itself 
exactly the right architecture for delivering Federal childcare 
assistance during COVID. With the extra funding, states were 
able to expand access to childcare for essential workers, 
reduced parent co-pays, increased provider reimbursement rates 
to cover fixed and operational expenses, reimbursed providers 
based on enrollment versus attendance to stabilize provider 
cash-flow and provide wage supplements and bonuses to raise 
childcare staff wages and incentivize staff to stay.
    Additionally, when public schools shuttered their doors and 
turned kitchen tables and laptops into classrooms, countless 
essential workers turned to their local childcare providers who 
welcomed school aged children, providing them with a safe place 
while mom and dad worked. We have a program with 30 years of 
bipartisan support and a program that has shown it cannot only 
withstand but excel during a pandemic. CDBG seems a remarkable 
foundation from which to build.
    I am offering an olive branch to my colleagues on the other 
side to encourage them to take the bipartisan path. This 
morning, Senator Tim Scott is leading our charge to find common 
ground. Along with several colleagues, we will introduce the 
Childcare and Development Block Grant Act Reauthorization of 
2022.
    In crafting this legislation, we have sought to build a 
bipartisan CDBG program which has been assisting American 
working families with their childcare for the last 30 years, 
and that has allowed parents maximum choice, maximum choice in 
their childcare providers, including providing greater support 
to help working families afford childcare to increase 
eligibility and lower parent co-pays so that more families can 
get the need--the help they need to afford health care--
childcare.
    Improving reimbursement rates for childcare providers to 
cover fixed costs, operating expenses, and staff salaries, and 
benefits necessary to recruit, train, and retain qualified 
staff so that they can make childcare more affordable and pay 
childcare workers more. Providing greater support for childcare 
teachers through financial assistance in the attainment of 
post-secondary credentials and degrees, and financial 
assistance to provide to recruit and retain childcare teachers 
through bonuses, retention grants, wage supplements, so we can 
raise the quality of education and care provided.
    Expanding the supply and capacity of childcare providers so 
working parents have multiple quality childcare options to best 
suit their family's needs and ensuring childcare facilities are 
designed and equipped to keep children healthy and safe. This 
is the foundation we should be working from, not a partisan 
bill that destroys a system that we have built over years. I am 
hopeful Members will give this bill consideration. Let us know 
what we got right. Let us know what we got wrong.
    More importantly, how to make it better. That is the 
legislation process I hope that we pursue. That we put this 
reckless exercise aside, that we go back to the greatest 
traditions of this Committee in the Senate and seek a 
reasonable solution that works for all in the country. I thank 
the Chair.
    The Chair. Thank you. I want to thank all of our witnesses 
for being here today. Really appreciate your willingness to 
come and testify today. Look forward to hearing from all of 
you. Our first witness is Rhian Evans Allvin. She is the Chief 
Executive Officer of the National Association for the Education 
of Young Children, the largest national professional 
association for early childhood educators, whose mission is to 
promote high quality early learning for all young children from 
newborns to 8 year olds.
    Before taking on this role, Ms. Allvin worked to promote 
early childhood education in Arizona, including her work on the 
passage of a citizen's ballot initiative that set aside funding 
for young children and established a new agency focused on 
ensuring all children in the state are prepared to start 
kindergarten. Thank you for joining us today. We look forward 
to your testimony. Our next witness is Julie Kashen.
    Ms. Kashen is the Director of Women's Economic Justice and 
a Senior Fellow at the Century Foundation. It is an 
organization she has worked with since 2015. She has over two 
decades of experience in work on policy issues related to 
working families, caregiving, economic mobility, and labor, 
including her time drafting childcare proposals as the Policy 
Director of the Make It Work campaign.
    Ms. Kashen, appreciate you joining us today to share your 
time and your expertise. And with that, I will turn it over to 
Senator Kaine to introduce our next witness.
    Senator Kaine. Thank you, Madam Chair, and Ranking Member 
Burr. I am very pleased to introduce a key witness from the 
Commonwealth of Virginia, Maria Isabel Ballivian. I first met 
Ms. Ballivian in September 2020 at a roundtable on the impact 
of COVID-19 on the Latino community.
    At that roundtable, I learned about her experience as the 
Executive Director of the Annandale Christian Community Action 
for Child Development Center, a Center that has been offering 
high quality childcare for more than five decades. She 
memorably gave me drawings made by kids at the Center at that 
meeting.
    Under Ms. Ballivian's leadership, the Development Center 
offers full day, year round and comprehensive early education 
to more than 230 at risk and disadvantaged children in 
Annandale, which is in Fairfax County. As an AC accredited 
program, the ACCA Child Development Center provides a 
curriculum that maximizes social, emotional, cognitive, and 
physical learning for children, and the Center has created 
innovative partnerships with many higher-ed institutions, 
George Mason University, Northern Virginia Community College, 
Fairfax County, to improve school readiness.
    Ms. Ballivian has more than 25 years of experience in early 
childhood education, and over the past 2 years she has been on 
the front lines of COVID-19 pandemic, caring for the children 
of essential workers and addressing new needs of the families 
in her community, all while continuing to advocate for 
necessary and long overdue changes in our childcare system. I 
look forward to hearing from Ms. Ballivian, and I will have 
questions for her today.
    The Chair. Thank you. Ms. Ballivian, look forward to your 
testimony. Thank you, Senator Kaine. And with that, I will turn 
over to Senator Burr to introduce our final witness.
    Senator Burr. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to 
welcome Ellen Williams Reynolds. She is the Chief Executive 
Officer of the Georgia Childcare Association, a trade 
organization representing the owners and directors of licensed 
childcare providers working to increase quality, affordable, 
and accessible childcare for working families.
    Ms. Reynolds has served on various state committees, 
including Governor Nathan Deal's Education Reform Commission 
Subcommittee on Early Childhood Education, which led to 
systematic reforms including requiring participation in a 
quality rating system to be eligible to serve subsidy children.
    Ms. Reynolds also chaired the Department of Community 
Health Advisory Committee on Women's Health and the Office of 
Child Advocate Advisory Committee. She was also appointed to 
the Governor's Office of Child Advocate Nominating Committee, 
the Governor's Commission on Family Violence, and the Georgia 
House of Representatives Budget Study Committee.
    Ms. Reynolds holds a bachelor's degree in Psychology from 
the University of Alabama and a Juris Doctorate degree from the 
University of Georgia School of Law. Ellen lives in Atlanta 
with her husband and her stepson, who is a freshman at Auburn. 
Tell him I am sorry about Auburn's quick departure from the 
playoffs. We welcome you today, Ellen. Thank you.
    The Chair. Thank you, Senator Burr. And Ms. Reynolds, I 
look forward to your testimony today too. Welcome. With that, 
we will begin our testimony. Ms. Allvin, you may begin your 
opening statement.

   STATEMENT OF RHIAN EVANS ALLVIN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, 
   NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE EDUCATION OF YOUNG CHILDREN 
                    [NAEYC], WASHINGTON, DC

    Ms. Allvin. Thank you, Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr, 
and Members of the Committee. As a parent and as the CEO at the 
National Association for the Education of Young Children, it is 
an honor to be with you today to talk about how childcare and 
preschool are defining economic issues for families and for our 
Country.
    NAEYC is a professional association that comprises nearly 
60,000 members and 52 affiliates. NAEYC early learning program 
accreditation is considered the highest mark of quality, 
accrediting more than 6,000 programs across the country, 
including the child development centers operated by the 
Department of Defense.
    In the last two decades, our understanding of the economic 
and scientific imperatives that support high quality early 
childhood education have grown exponentially. The public 
dollars we invest during the early years leads to substantial 
fiscal returns. They increase labor force participation, reduce 
costs for families, keep the doors of small businesses open, 
and save the Government money, all the while helping prepare 
the next generation for success in school, in society, and in 
life.
    Yet despite the overwhelming evidence attesting to the 
benefits of investing in high quality early childhood 
education, our Nation's progress has been limited. Quality 
early learning settings remain scarce and unaffordable. Parents 
pay more for childcare than college tuition, yet still don't 
have real options. And early childhood educators earn poverty 
level wages that undermine their complex work and limit the 
supply of care. Pandemic relief funds have provided critical 
support to stabilize childcare programs. In a recent NAEYC 
survey, 92 percent of respondents whose programs had received 
stabilization funds said that the grants helped their program 
stay open.
    Yet relief was not intended to resolve the systemic 
challenges and persistent underfunding that have plagued the 
childcare market for decades. The Childcare and Development 
Block Grant, CDBG, is a foundational and critical program. Yet 
more than 30 years after its establishment, only one in nine 
eligible young children is being served.
    At the same time, childcare costs to American families have 
risen more than twice the rate of inflation. Our history is 
clear, public investments in early childhood education have 
been modest relative to the need, and there is a seismic gap 
between what we spend as a country and what it will take to 
give parents real options, create a floor of safety, and 
quality for all families, and create a compensation structure 
that can attract and retain a diverse, qualified workforce.
    We have an opportunity to close that gap, to align the 
scope of the solution to the depth of the challenge. A Federal 
investment provided through reconciliation is the path toward 
achieving the impact that families and our Country need. Every 
data point speaks to a childcare field whose collapse has been 
only delayed by Federal relief. In the absence of additional 
investments, more programs will close, more educators will 
leave, and families will pay more.
    The impact will be catastrophic, which is why these 
investments can't wait till another day or another time. And 
the American public doesn't want them to. The proposed 
investments by Senator Murray in childcare and pre-K rightly 
posit what the American public believes. That is, the childcare 
and preschool are as critical to our Nation's current and 
future economy as addressing the climate crisis, the cost of 
prescription drugs, and our roads and bridges.
    The investment builds on what works in a way that supports 
quality childcare options for families with infants and 
toddlers and preschoolers in every community and every setting, 
including large and small centers, family childcare homes, and 
faith based programs using financial pillars that are clear and 
necessary. The solution has to be affordable for families. 
Childcare has to be for--be financed at scale.
    Preschool and childcare must remain aligned because 
bifurcating a system by age, band, and setting undermines all 
that we know about high quality early childhood education 
works. Cost models that drive the distribution of funds must be 
based on the actual cost of care. While the public sector must 
finance the system, the delivery of care must remain in the 
marketplace because different families need different 
solutions.
    Finally, strong and straightforward accountability systems 
need to be in place to ensure the increased investment results 
in increased salaries for early childhood educators through 
their employers.
    This is a moment for our Nation to finally align the 
financing of early childhood education with the expectations we 
have for the outcomes of that system. With the Federal 
Government leading the way, states and employers will have the 
financing to follow suit so that educators can be compensated 
fairly while families save money. Thank you, and I look forward 
to your questions.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Allvin follows:]
                prepared statement of rhian evans allvin
    Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr and Members of the Committee:

    It is an honor to be with you today to talk about why child care 
and preschool are linchpins driving the health and vitality of our 
Nation and our economy. The proof is everywhere we look. Just this 
month, 48 percent of American workers said that child care is the issue 
keeping them out of the workforce. \1\ According to another recent 
study, both men and women face a 7 percent wage penalty for taking time 
away from the workforce due to challenges with child care. \2\ On a 
broader scale, a lack of investment in child care is costing our 
Country $57 billion each year in lost earnings, productivity, and 
revenue. \3\ And that doesn't even count the reality that nearly half 
of early childhood educators earn so little for their skilled and 
valuable work that they rely on public benefits to make ends meet, at a 
steep cost to their own families, as well as state and Federal 
Governments. \4\
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    \1\  Pew Research Center, published March 9, 2022. Retrieved 
online: The Great Resignation: Why workers say they quit jobs in 2021--
Pew Research Center.
    \2\  Payscale. 2022 State of the Gender Pay Gap Report. Retrieved 
online: https://www.payscale.com/research-and-insights/gender-pay-gap/.
    \3\  Ready Nation, Council for a Strong America. ``Want to Grow the 
Economy? Fix the Child Care Crisis.'' January 2019.
    \4\  Whitebook, M., McLean, C., Austin, L.J.E., & Edwards, B. 
(2018). Early Childhood Workforce Index--2018. Berkeley, CA: Center for 
the Study of Child Care Employment, University of California, Berkeley. 
Retrieved from http://cscce.berkeley.edu/topic/early-childhood-
workforce-index/2018/.

    These statistics are shocking, but they also illustrate the reality 
families are living every day even while policymakers continue to 
debate the value of public investments in early childhood education 
after decades of evidence that they are proven to work. We know those 
investments increase labor force participation, reduce costs for 
families, keep the doors of small businesses open, and save the 
government money over time. And they help prepare the next generation 
for success in school, society, and life. American voters know this, 
too--nearly 70 percent say that taking action to ensure working 
families have access to affordable, high-quality child care and early 
learning programs should be a priority this year. \5\
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    \5\  First Five Years Fund. Voters Overwhelmingly Support Federal 
Investments in Child Care and Pre-K. September 2021.

    As a parent and as the CEO at the National Association for the 
Education of Young Children (NAEYC), I can tell you that child care is 
a defining economic issue, for families and for our Country. NAEYC has 
the honor of being the professional membership organization that works 
to promote high-quality early learning for all young children, birth 
through age 8. The association comprises nearly 60,000 individual 
members and 52 Affiliates across the country. NAEYC early learning 
program accreditation is considered the highest mark of quality, 
accrediting more than 6,000 early childhood programs, including the 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
child development centers operated by the Department of Defense.

    Since 1999, when the National Academies released their 
groundbreaking report, Neurons to Neighborhoods, our understanding of 
the economic and scientific imperatives that support high-quality early 
childhood education have grown exponentially. During the first 5 years 
of life, a child's brain is growing at the fastest rate it will grow 
during the human lifespan. All future learning and development will 
build on these early years, as the foundation for a child's cognitive, 
social and emotional, language, health and physical well-being is 
established. The public dollars we invest during these years lead to 
substantial fiscal returns over generations, estimated at up to $16 for 
every $1 invested--as long as we ensure that infants, toddlers, and 
preschoolers are in child care centers, family child care homes, faith-
based programs, and schools that maximize their development and 
learning while their parents work.

    Yet despite more than 20 years of evidence and data attesting to 
the benefits of investing in high-quality early childhood education, 
our Nation's progress has been limited. Quality early learning settings 
remain scarce and unaffordable. Parents pay more for child care than 
public in-state college tuition, yet still don't have real choices. And 
early childhood educators, who primarily are women and women of color, 
are earning poverty-level wages that undermine their complex work. No 
other field that holds the science and economic evidence of early 
childhood education faces these untenable conditions--especially when 
action can be taken to resolve them.
                              Relief Helps
    Federal and state relief funds have provided critical support for 
stabilizing child care programs, the bulk of which are small 
businesses, and prevented a worse outbreak of permanent closures. In a 
recent NAEYC survey, 92 percent of respondents whose programs had 
received stabilization funds said that the grants helped their program 
stay open. \6\ They used the funds to increase compensation, pay off 
debt, and help families save money on child care costs. Yet relief is, 
by definition, short-term, and was not intended to resolve the systemic 
challenges and persistent underfunding that have plagued the child care 
market for decades.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\  NAEYC. Saved But Not Solved. America's Economy Needs Congress 
to Fund Child Care. February 2022. Retrieved online at: www.naeyc.org/
pandemic-surveys.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                      The Status Quo is Not Enough
    Enacted in 1990 to address some of the challenges that are still 
with us, the Child Care and Development Block Grant is a foundational 
and critical program. Yet more than 30 years later, only 1 in 9 
eligible children is being served. At the same time, the cost of early 
childhood education to American families has risen more than twice the 
rate of inflation. Our history is clear: the public investments in 
child care have been modest, and there is a seismic gap between what we 
spend as a country and what it will take to give parents real options, 
create a floor of safety and quality for all families, and attract and 
retain well-compensated early childhood educators.

    But we have an opportunity to close that gap, to align the scope of 
the solution to the depth of the challenge.
                        Urgent Action is Needed
    A Federal investment in child care and preschool provided through 
reconciliation is the path right now toward achieving the impact that 
families and our Country need. Every data point, survey result, and 
story, such as those that you'll hear from providers today and those 
that educators and families share with you and each other in meetings, 
town halls, parent listservs, and grocery store aisles, speaks to a 
child care industry whose collapse has been only delayed by Federal 
relief. our Country cannot risk finding out what happens when the 
16,000 programs that have already closed in the pandemic become 60,000 
programs; \7\ when the 100,000 child care jobs that already have been 
lost become half a million; \8\ when the third of educators who say 
they are planning to leave or close their program this year actually 
walk away. \9\ It would be catastrophic. That is the economic necessity 
and urgency in acting. These investments cannot wait until another day 
and time.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \7\  Child Care Aware of America. Demanding Change: Repairing Our 
Child Care System. February 2022. Retrieved online at: Demanding 
Change: Repairing our Child Care System.
    \8\  Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, ``Child Care 
Sector Jobs: BLS Analysis,'' February 7, 2022, https://
cscce.berkeley.edu/child-care-sector-jobs-bls-analysis/.
    \9\  NAEYC. Saved But Not Solved. America's Economy Needs Congress 
to Fund Child Care. February 2022. Retrieved online at: www.naeyc.org/
pandemic-surveys.

    The public does not want them to. The $400 billion investment in 
child care and preK outlined in Senator Murray's most recent proposal 
rightly posits and reflects what the American public believes--that 
child care and preschool are as critical to our Nation's future as 
addressing the climate crisis, the exorbitant costs of prescription 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
drugs, and our dilapidated roads and bridges.

    These investments recognize that child care is a defining economic 
issue. This is not a rural problem or an urban problem but an American 
problem. We are at an urgent and critical inflection point, and the 
challenges are deep. However, they are also solvable, and Congress can 
solve them. The proposed investments build on what works in a way that 
supports the existence of high-quality child care options in every 
community and setting, including large and small centers, family child 
care homes, and faith-based programs.
                       Key Pillars for Investment
    We have learned a lot in the last 20 years--and especially in the 
last 2 years. These financing pillars are clear and necessary:

        1. Child care must be more affordable. Ensuring families pay no 
        more than 7 percent of their income creates a sliding scale 
        that meets families' individual budgets.

        2. Child care must be financed at scale. If it is not, families 
        will continue to experience the unresolvable tensions and 
        tradeoffs between affordability, accessibility and quality, and 
        the compensation structures won't exist to recruit and retain a 
        qualified workforce.

        3. Preschool and child care provisions must remain aligned. 
        Bifurcating a system by age band and setting undermines all 
        that we know about how the marketplace works, how families make 
        choices and how the system is financed.

        4. Cost models that drive the distribution of funds must be 
        based on the cost of care. Subsidies need to account for a 
        variety of factors, including wages, enrollment of children, 
        and fixed costs in order to provide the stability and 
        predictability that are required for child care employers to 
        confidently invest in quality and their workforce.

        5. While the public sector must finance the system, the 
        delivery of care must remain in the marketplace. Different 
        families need different solutions, and they must have real 
        options that include family child care, faith-based settings, 
        public schools, community-based settings, Head Start and 
        private providers.

        6. Strong and straightforward accountability systems need to be 
        in place to ensure the increased investment is reaching early 
        childhood educators. These systems don't need to be complex but 
        they do need to be insistent that increased taxpayer dollars 
        get to early childhood educators' salaries through their 
        employers.

    This is the moment for our Nation to finally align the financing of 
early childhood education with the expectations we have for the 
outcomes of that system, much like our global competitors have. The 
only way that will happen is for the Federal Government to lead the way 
by addressing high-quality early childhood education--child care and 
preK--birth through age five. States and employers will follow suit, 
families will no longer need to make false choices between quality and 
affordability, and early childhood educators will finally have 
compensation that aligns to the science of early learning.

    Thank you and I look forward to your questions.
                                 ______
                                 
               [summary statement of rhian evans allvin]
    Ms. Allvin's Testimony will focus on the following key points:

          Child care and preschool are a defining economic 
        issue.

                Y  Forty-eight percent of American workers said that 
                child care is the issue keeping them out of the 
                workforce.

                Y  Men and women face a 7-percent wage penalty for 
                taking time away from the workforce due to challenges 
                with child care.

                Y  A lack of investment in child care is costing our 
                Country $57 billion each year in lost earnings, 
                productivity, and revenue.

                Y  Nearly half of early childhood educators earn so 
                little that they rely on public benefits to make ends 
                meet.

          For more than 20 years, our understanding of the 
        scientific and economic imperatives that support high-quality 
        early childhood education has grown exponentially. However, 
        quality early learning settings remain scarce and unaffordable.

          Relief helps--Federal and state relief funds have 
        provided critical support for stabilizing child care programs, 
        the bulk of which are small, women-owned businesses, and 
        prevented a worse outbreak of permanent closures.

          The status quo is insufficient. Urgent action is 
        needed to support states, businesses, families and children. 
        Child care and preschool are as critical to our Nation's future 
        as addressing the climate crisis, the exorbitant costs of 
        prescription drugs, and our dilapidated roads and bridges.

          Reconciliation provides the necessary opportunity to 
        align the scope of the solution to the depth of the challenge.

          There are key financing pillars that must be 
        included:

                Y  Child care must be more affordable.

                Y  Child care must be financed at scale.

                Y  Preschool and child care provisions must remain 
                aligned.

                Y  Cost models that drive the distribution of funds 
                must be based on the cost of care.

                Y  While the public sector must finance the system, the 
                delivery of care must remain in the marketplace.

                Y  Strong and straightforward accountability systems 
                need to be in place to ensure the increased investment 
                is reaching early childhood educators.

    This is the moment for our Nation to finally align the financing of 
early childhood education with the expectations we have for the 
outcomes of that system, much like our global competitors have. It's 
time to ensure families will no longer need to make false choices 
between quality and affordability, and early childhood educators will 
finally have compensation that aligns to the science of early learning 
and keeps them in the early childhood field they love, so families have 
the affordable and quality options they need.
                                 ______
                                 
    The Chair. Thank you very much.
    Ms. Kashen.

STATEMENT OF JULIE KASHEN, DIRECTOR, WOMEN'S ECONOMIC JUSTICE, 
      AND SENIOR FELLOW, CENTURY FOUNDATION, NEW YORK, NY

    Ms. Kashen. Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr, Members of 
the Committee, I am Julie Kashen, Director of Women's Economic 
Justice at a think tank called the Century Foundation. I am 
also a former Senate HELP Committee staffer, and the mom to a 
wonderful 8 year old son. It is such a pleasure to be here with 
you to talk about the need to cut costs of childcare and 
preschool for working families.
    What could be more fundamental to American communities than 
how we care for our children? Picture the newborn snuggling 
with her parents, the pre-K teacher reading the very hungry 
caterpillar to their students, or their toddler making his 
first friend in a childcare classroom. We are here today to 
talk not only about why we must prioritize caring for our 
children as a shared American value, but also as an imperative 
for economic growth that is equitable.
    American families have long been struggling with out of 
reach childcare prices. As mentioned, childcare costs as much 
as public college tuition, rent, or mortgage payments, and 
often it comes at a time in a parent's life where they can 
barely afford it because they have just started their working 
lives, so they are not making enough money to afford it. And 
that is if they can find childcare.
    Even before the pandemic wreaked havoc on the childcare 
sector, more than half of all families lived in a childcare 
desert and two-thirds of families with infants and toddlers, 
and those are areas where there just is not enough childcare 
for every family who needs it. And early educators, mostly 
women, disproportionately women of color, have long been 
underpaid for their complex and valuable work.
    The tremendous gap between what parents pay and early 
educators earn is a product of a broken market. It cannot be 
solved on its own. The Federal Government must step in with 
sustainable long term investment through reconciliation. The 
COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated an unacceptable status quo.
    That is why parents, teachers, business leaders, providers, 
grandparents, economists, and more have come together in 
support of the childcare and preschool investments proposed by 
Chair Murray and her colleagues. The path forward must include 
these five principles reflected in that proposal. No. 1, 
guarantee assistance to every eligible family, including middle 
class families. No. 2, lower childcare costs for families.
    The Democratic proposal would lower costs by about $5,000 
per year per family. No. 3, give every family the freedom to 
choose the care and early education that works best for them. 
That requires building the supply of high quality childcare and 
pre-K options in diverse settings ranging from centers to 
family childcare to faith based programs, Head Start, early 
Head Start, and for pre-K in schools.
    No. 4, invest in the workforce by providing higher 
compensation and training opportunities. And No. 5, ensure all 
children have childcare that fosters their health, well-being, 
and learning during the earliest years of foundational brain 
development. Some will say, as we have heard, that we already 
have a childcare policy in place. I want to address that. The 
Childcare Development Block Grant serves working families with 
low incomes, but because of chronic underfunding, only one in 
nine eligible young children actually receive assistance.
    Because of the lack of resources and limited reach, most 
families in the United States are not included at all. The 
Democratic proposal would reach more than 20 times the number 
of children served by CDBG in States like Kansas, Utah, 
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nevada, and Colorado. The status quo is 
untenable.
    Without intervention, safe, nurturing, reliable childcare 
and preschool will be out of reach, but all--for all but the 
wealthiest families. Racial, economic, and gender inequities 
will continue to expand, and the vast majority of families will 
continue cobbling together makeshift solutions that create 
stress, instability, and challenges for them, their employers, 
and their children.
    Some will be forced to leave the workforce altogether or 
reduce their work hours, causing long term negative impacts for 
their lifetime earnings, retirement security, or career 
advancement. On the flip side, the Democratic proposal will 
support children, families, and economic growth.
    A new report from the Century Foundation and the Center for 
Economic Policy Research finds that annual parental earnings 
will increase nationwide by $48 billion, reduced business 
disruptions will generate $60 billion annually, and expanding 
the early learning sectors jobs will yield $30 billion 
annually.
    Beyond these gains, families will have more economic 
stability. Parents, especially mothers, will have more choices. 
And children will have stronger social, emotional, and academic 
foundations. That is what it looks like to care for America's 
children. Congress has the opportunity to right now to make 
childcare work for millions of Americans. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Kashen follows:]
                   prepared statement of julie kashen
    Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr, and Members of the Committee. 
Thank you for holding today's hearing. I'm Julie Kashen, Director of 
Women's Economic Justice and a Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation. 
We are an independent think tank that conducts research, develops 
solutions, and drives policy change to make people's lives better. I am 
also a former Senate HELP Committee staffer and I am a mom. My son will 
be eight soon. Our child care challenges remain fresh in my mind. It's 
a pleasure to be here with you to talk about cutting child care and 
preschool costs for working families.

    What could be more fundamental to American communities than how we 
care for our children? Picture the newborn snuggling with her mom. 
Imagine a baby smiling at his dad for the first time, a teacher reading 
The Very Hungry Caterpillar to her pre-K class or the joy when a 
toddler makes her first friend in a child care classroom. Think about 
the power of the love and the bonds that parents have with their 
children and that teachers, grandparents, and other caregivers share. 
We are here today to talk about not only why we must prioritize caring 
for children as a core shared American value, but also as an imperative 
for equitable economic growth.
                      Lowering Costs for Families
    Let's start with the reality that Americans are struggling with 
inflation. Families with young children are now facing rising prices of 
necessities, along with the out of reach and skyrocketing child care 
prices the economy has experienced for decades. Over the past thirty 
years, child care prices have risen more than twice the rate of 
inflation--faster than the price of food, housing, and other items. \1\ 
The pandemic has accelerated these trends, with child care inflation 
exceeding annual inflation in 2020 by nearly 4 percent. \2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\  Derek Thompson, ``Why Child Care Is So Ridiculously 
Expensive,'' The Atlantic, November 26, 2019, https://
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/why-child-care-so-expensive/
602599/.
    \2\  Child Care Aware of America, ``Demanding Change: Repairing Our 
Child Care System,'' February 2022, https://www.childcareaware.org/
demanding-change-repairing-our-child-care-system/#Affordability.

    Most parents need child care at a time when they can least afford 
it because they are early in their career. This has particular impacts 
for families of color due to, at least in part, ongoing systemic and 
structural inequities that perpetuate overrepresentation of communities 
of color in jobs paying lower wages, the ranks of those experiencing 
higher unemployment rates, and families living below the Federal 
poverty level. Unlike college tuition, which is also too expensive, 
parents don't have 18 years to plan and save. To access child care, 
families are forced either to pay an amount equivalent to that for 
college tuition, rent, or a mortgage, put together patchwork solutions 
that create instability for their work lives and for their children, or 
be one of the fortunate few who receive child care assistance. \3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\  Ibid.

    Meanwhile, staffing shortages in the early care and education 
sector will continue to put upward pressure on prices as child care 
businesses will have to raise wages to attract early educators--or go 
out of business. \4\ Even before the pandemic wreaked havoc on the 
child care sector, data from the Center for American Progress showed 
that more than half of families with young children live in a child 
care desert (a census tract where there are more than three times as 
many children as licensed child care slots). Two-thirds live in infant 
and toddler child care deserts. \5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\  Elliot Haspel, ``There's a massive child-care worker shortage 
and the market can't fix it,'' Washington Post, May 26, 2021, https://
www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/05/26/child-care-center-worker-
shortage/.
    \5\  Steven Jessen-Howard, Rasheed Malik, and MK Falgout. ``Costly 
and Unavailable: America Lacks Sufficient Child Care Supply for Infants 
and Toddlers,'' Center for American Progress, August 4, 2020, https://
www.americanprogress.org/article/costly unavailable-america-lacks-
sufficient-child-care-supply infants-toddlers/.

    Without intervention, safe, nurturing, stable, reliable child care 
and early education will be out of reach for all but the wealthiest of 
families. The vast majority will continue to struggle to make it work, 
cobbling together makeshift solutions that create stress, instability 
and challenges for them, their employers and their children. Some will 
be forced to leave the workforce altogether or reduce their work hours, 
causing long-term negative impacts on lifetime earnings, retirement 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
security and career advancement.

    Jessica Morrison and her husband Jason live in Pennsylvania with 
their 2-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter. Jessica works full-time 
as a social worker. Jason cares for their kids during the day and 
drives for Uber and Lyft on nights and weekends because they cannot 
find or afford child care. Trading off child care ``shifts'' in this 
way causes an immense amount of stress and limits their income as well 
as their ability to spend time together as a family. When their son was 
about 8 months old, Jessica's husband had the opportunity to take a 
well-paying job he was excited about. They scrambled to find child 
care, but after running into long waitlists, low availability, and high 
costs Jason had to turn down the job offer.

    Prices are too high for most parents to afford; yet the amazing 
early educators, who are primarily women and disproportionately women 
of color, are significantly underpaid for the valuable and complex work 
they do. The long history of Black women as caregivers is rooted in 
inequity and created the foundational racial, gender, and economic 
inequities that are reflected today through the devaluation of the 
child care and early education profession. Because of their low pay, 
early educators are often unable to afford care for their own children.

    For example, when Jessica Flook from Portland, Oregon, became a 
mother 3 years ago, she began looking for employment outside of the 
child care industry--where she'd worked for nearly a decade--because it 
did not pay well enough to afford child care herself. Since leaving 
that job, she has not found affordable child care that meets her 
family's needs and has been home with her son. She plans to wait to get 
a job until her family qualifies for assistance or her son is in public 
education.

    Similarly, BriTanya Bays of Stamford, Texas, was working as a child 
care and preschool director while she was pregnant with twins. When she 
realized she couldn't afford to enroll her own children at the center 
where she worked, even part-time, she left and started her own in-home 
child care program.

    The tremendous gap between what parents pay, and what early 
educators earn, is a product of a failed market. It cannot be solved on 
its own. The Federal Government must step in with sustainable, long-
term investments through reconciliation.

    We have seen that when the Federal Government acts, it matters. The 
COVID-19 relief dollars Congress spent to help stabilize the child care 
sector and support families likely helped save more than 3 million 
child care spots. \6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\  Julie Kashen and Rasheed Malik, ``More Than Three Million 
Child Care Spots Saved by American Rescue Plan Funding, The Century 
Foundation, March 9, 2022, https://tcf.org/content/commentary/three-
million-child-care-spots-saved-american-rescue-plan-funding/.

    This funding was necessary because the child care sector and 
families with young children have been hit especially hard by the 
COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing economic crisis: parents--especially 
moms--have faced labor market disruptions alongside child care and 
schooling disruptions. This is the first time families have had to 
endure two disruptions of this magnitude hitting at the same time, with 
the same rapidity. This deeply impacts families living on low incomes 
and families of color due to historic and ongoing economic and racial 
inequity and has a ripple effect into businesses as well, causing 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
additional disruptions.

    While the COVID-19 relief funds have helped, the sector is still 
missing the 16,000 programs that have closed down \7\ and more than 
100,000 child care jobs that have not returned. \8\ Families are still 
struggling, and after 2 years of a pandemic in which women--especially 
women of color--bore the brunt of the care responsibilities without 
support while still working full-time jobs, or the job losses from the 
sectors in which they disproportionately work, we cannot allow the 
situation to merely return to its dire, unacceptable status quo.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \7\  Child Care Aware of America, ``Demanding Change: Repairing Our 
Child Care System,'' February 2022, https://www.childcareaware.org/
demanding-change-repairing-our-child-care-system/#Affordability.
    \8\  Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, ``Child Care 
Sector Jobs: BLS Analysis,'' February 7, 2022, https://
cscce.berkeley.edu/child-care-sector-jobs-bls-analysis/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Essential Elements of Federal Child Care and Pre-K Investments
    The pandemic brought unprecedented attention to this unacceptable 
status quo. This is why parents, early educators, business leaders, 
child care providers, small business owners, grandparents, and 
economists have come together in support of the child care and pre-
kindergarten investments that Chair Murray and colleagues have put 
forth for the economic package.

    Some will say that we already have a child care policy in place. I 
want to address that. The Child Care Development Block Grant (CCDBG) 
serves working families with low incomes, but has never been resourced 
adequately enough to even reach a small fraction of those families. The 
lack of resources has led to challenging tradeoffs in state policy 
decisions. These harmful tradeoffs have disproportionately impacted 
Black and other communities of color--particularly those with the 
lowest incomes. Accordingly, gaping holes in coverage even for families 
with very low incomes remain. In 2019, just one in nine young children 
who were eligible for CCDBG actually received assistance through CCDBG. 
For families who do have access it is a lifeline for them--allowing 
them access to affordable and reliable care for their children while 
they work. \9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\  Rasheed Malik, ``The Build Back Better Act Substantially 
Expands Child Care Assistance,'' Center for American Progress, December 
21, 2021, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-build-back-
better-act-substantially-expands-child-care-assistance/.

    However, most families in the United States are not included in 
CCDBG, and are left to struggle to find and pay for child care on their 
own. Even families who receive CCDBG assistance are often left with 
significant cost burdens, due to high copayments, and few child care 
options, because of low provider payment rates. And the lack of 
resources overall leaves child care providers struggling to keep their 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
doors open and pay even poverty-level wages to their staff.

    BriTanya Bays, mentioned earlier, takes child care subsidies under 
the current law, but despite her college degree and round-the-clock 
work, she is only reimbursed about $2-$3 an hour per child--forcing her 
into impossible choices between paying herself a salary and ensuring 
she has adequate toys, books and cleaning supplies.

    In order to see the full economic and child development benefits of 
meaningful, long-term Federal child care and pre-K investments, 
Congress must include in the reconciliation bill investments that 
reflect five principles:

        1. Guarantee assistance to every eligible family, including 
        middle class families. The Democratic proposal would reach, on 
        average, 16 times as many young children as under current law. 
        In Alaska, Louisiana, and Maine, it would help state child care 
        agencies reach just over 16 times as many children and 
        families; in Indiana it's nineteen; and in Kansas, South 
        Carolina, Utah, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nevada, and Colorado, the 
        proposal would reach more than 20 times those reached under 
        current law. \10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \10\  Rasheed Malik, ``The Build Back Better Act Substantially 
Expands Child Care Assistance,'' Center for American Progress, December 
2, 2021, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-build-back-
better-act-substantially-expands-child-care-assistance/.

        2. Lower child care costs for families. The Democratic proposal 
        would lower costs by about $5,000 a year per family by ensuring 
        the vast majority of families don't pay more than 7 percent of 
        household income for child care, and by guaranteeing free child 
        care for millions of the most under-resourced families. This 
        will yield more than $100 a week in savings for a typical 
        family in Alaska, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Washington, and 
        the majority of states. \11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \11\  Rasheed Malik, ``The Build Back Better Act Would Greatly 
Lower Families' Child Care Costs,'' Center for American Progress, 
September 22, 2021, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/build-
back-better-act-greatly-lower-families-child-care-costs/.

        3. Give every family the freedom to choose the care and early 
        education for their children that works best for them, 
        including during nontraditional work hours. This requires 
        building the supply of high quality child care and prek options 
        in diverse settings including centers, family child care, 
        faith-based programs, Head Start and Early Head Start programs 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        and pre-K programs in schools.

        4. Invest in the workforce by providing higher compensation and 
        training opportunities. This is also key to addressing the 
        child care staffing shortages that threaten to further 
        dismantle the child care sector. Providers must be paid in a 
        way that supports lower costs for families and the ability to 
        pay higher wages and invest in other quality measures.

        5. Ensure all children have access to high-quality care that 
        allows them to thrive and fosters their health, well-being and 
        learning during the earliest years of foundational brain 
        development.
                          It's Time for Action
    Long before the pandemic, child care disruptions were a major 
challenge for businesses. The United States faces billions of dollars 
in economic productivity and revenue losses due to the lack of stable, 
reliable child care options. \12\ A recent report I wrote in 
partnership with the Center for Economic Policy Research found that 
investing in child care and pre-K could mitigate more than $60 billion 
in those business-related losses. As Microsoft president Brad Smith has 
pointed out: ``we need to do more to help bring Americans back to work 
and one of the key ingredients that we see is that people can only come 
back to work if they have a way to take care of their children.'' \13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \12\  12 Sandra Bishop-Josef, Ph.D., Chris Beakey, Sara Watson, 
Ph.D., and Tom Garrett, ``Want to Grow the Economy: Fix the Child Care 
Crisis,'' Council for a Strong America and Ready Nation, January 2019, 
https://www.strongnation.org/articles/780-want-to-grow-the-economy-fix-
the-child-care-crisis.
    \13\  White House, ``Remarks by President Biden at Build Back 
Better CEO Roundtable,'' January 26, 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/
briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/01/26/remarks-by-president-biden-
at-build-back-better-ceo-roundtable/.

    In addition, with some likely overlap with the $60 billion 
estimate, our report found that investments in child care and pre-K 
could generate an annual $48 billion in increased parental earnings 
from parents entering or reentering the labor force, and increasing 
their work hours. Just ask parents--especially moms--around the country 
what a difference meaningful choices of stable, reliable, affordable 
child care would make for them. And what not having it is doing to 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
their families and careers.

    Finally, not only would such investments mitigate the child care 
staffing shortages plaguing communities around the Nation; the added 
jobs in child care and related sectors would yield an annual $30 
billion.

    It is clear that failure to provide long-term investments in child 
care and pre-K will exacerbate inequities and hinder economic growth in 
both the short and long term.

    Significant new investments through reconciliation are the only way 
forward. Funding determined annually through the appropriations cycle 
has never kept pace with the demand for child care or inflation, nor 
provided the certainty for states to serve families or expand the 
supply of child care and early learning options over the long run.

    As the COVID-19 relief funds run out and child care providers risk 
going out of business, children experience increased instability on top 
of the pandemic-related challenges they are just beginning to recover 
from, business disruptions increase, parents struggle, and communities 
around the Nation feel the weight of all these burdens combined. 
Congress has the opportunity right now to make child care work for 
millions of Americans.

    While Congress has difficult choices to make in the coming weeks, 
parents and caregivers of young children have no choice. If they can't 
get child care they can't go to work. Period. It's time to treat child 
care and pre-K investments like what they are: as essential to economic 
growth as infrastructure or energy.
                                 ______
                                 
                  [summary statement of julie kashen]
    Ms. Kashen's testimony will focus on:

          Lowering Costs for Families

          The Essential Elements of Federal Child Care and Pre-
        K Investments:

                (1) Guarantee assistance to every eligible family, 
                including middle class families.

                (2) Lower child care costs for families.

                (3) Give every family the freedom to choose the care 
                and early education for their children that works best 
                for them, including during nontraditional work hours. 
                This requires building the supply of high quality child 
                care and prek options in diverse settings including 
                centers, family child care, faith-based programs, Head 
                Start and Early Head Start programs and pre-K programs 
                in schools.

                (4) Invest in the workforce by providing higher 
                compensation and training opportunities. Providers must 
                be paid in a way that supports lower costs for families 
                and the ability to pay higher wages and invest in other 
                quality measures.

                (5) Ensure all children have access to high-quality 
                care that allows them to thrive and fosters their 
                health, well-being and learning during the earliest 
                years of foundational brain development.

          The Urgent Need for Action: Especially as we look at 
        the economic benefits of child care and pre-K.
                                 ______
                                 
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Ms. Ballivian.

 STATEMENT OF MARIA-ISABEL BALLIVIAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ACCA 
            CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTER, ANNANDALE, VA

    Ms. Ballivian. Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr and 
Committee Members, thank you for letting me talk about 
strengthening America's childcare system so our children, 
families, educators, workers, and employers are better served. 
I am the Executive Director of the ACCA Child Development 
Center, an NAEYC accredited nonprofit program providing high 
quality education to young children.
    After 55 years of service, we are one of Northern 
Virginia's top community based providers. 90 percent of ACCA's 
parents get childcare subsidies. The other 10 percent are 
making just above quality--above to qualify for public tuition 
assistance, but far too little to afford high quality early 
education. Since ACCA is part of a caring coalition of 
churches, we offset some costs with in-house scholarships.
    Yet it is hard to navigate a system where parent fees, 
subsidies, and education grants do not cover the true cost of 
quality. America's childcare system is broken. The pandemic has 
made it worse. Forcing some parents to stay home due to lack of 
available programs, they also face long waitlists, increasing 
tuition, and centers have to deal with the staffing shortages, 
supply chain disruptions, and rising inflation.
    Our profession is facing the most critical crisis in its 
history. Childcare teachers are among the lowest paid in 
America. The hourly wage of a teacher is $15 or less in 
Virginia. Not surprisingly, they are having trouble securing 
housing, managing transportation, accessing health care, and 
putting food on their tables.
    That is why between 20 and 40 percent leave the field for 
higher paying jobs. COVID has put more duties on teachers who 
are already overburdened and often challenged for doing a job 
where they are essential but treated as expendable in terms of 
pay. We are not babysitters. We are professionals responsible 
for interactions that affect the brain architecture of young 
children. Developmental gaps emerged during infancy and over 
time without the nurturing care and high quality education 
received from competent, well-trained, and well-paid teachers.
    This is what we do at ACCA. We invest in our teachers and 
ensure that children have access to quality, research based, 
and developmentally appropriate care with ratios and group 
sizes that keep children and educators safe. Early childhood 
investments are National Security and economic imperative. If 
America is to continue to lead the world, it needs an educated, 
healthy, resilient, innovative, and competitive labor force, 
and this without question begins with young children.
    During the pandemic, thousands of us have risked our lives 
to serve young children. All we asked for is the financial 
support and bipartisan will to provide our youngest children a 
real chance at the American dream and to hand working families 
a childcare ecosystem that is affordable, high quality, and 
where their children prepare for lifelong success. Without 
Federal stabilization dollars, we would have never survived the 
pandemic.
    Emergency childcare funding has kept ACCA and other 
programs open, but we are fearful for the future. And by we, I 
mean small and large programs, for profit, nonprofit, and faith 
based centers, and family childcare providers. We do not want 
to go back to the problems of the past. Instead, all providers 
stand together, ready to build a childcare system that works 
for America's children, families, educators, and businesses.
    In closing, I strongly encourage you to approve significant 
investment through reconciliation to strengthen our programs 
since the country's future depends on it. I appreciate your 
attention, and I look forward to your questions.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Ballivian follows:]
              prepared statement of maria-isabel ballivian
    Thank you, Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr, and Committee Members 
for the opportunity to speak before you about a topic that is closest 
to the moral, economic, and national security heart of our Country: the 
importance of strengthening our child care ecosystem and reducing costs 
for working families so that we can better support America's children, 
workers, educators, and employers.

    I am the Executive Director of the ACCA Child Development Center, a 
NAEYC-accredited, full-day, year-round, nonprofit program located in 
Annandale, Virginia, that provides high-quality early education for 
infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. After more than five decades of 
uninterrupted service, our program has become one of Northern 
Virginia's top community-based providers.

    Ninety percent of ACCA families are eligible for child care 
subsidies. The other 10 percent are, like so many American working 
families, living on the edge--making just too much income to qualify 
for public tuition assistance but far too little to afford high-quality 
early education. Because ACCA is part of a supportive coalition of 
churches, we have offset some costs with scholarships. Still, it 
remains difficult to navigate a system in which neither parent fees nor 
subsidies or education grants cover the actual cost of quality care in 
a way that allows programs to sustain salaries and benefits that 
reflect teachers' experience, training, and commitment to young 
children.

    Early childhood education in America is a broken system in which 
service is too expensive for working and disadvantaged families, and 
centers' profit margins are chronically thin. The pandemic has worsened 
the situation, forcing parents to leave the workforce due to a lack of 
quality programs. Parents face long waitlists and increased tuitions, 
and programs confront critical staffing shortages, supply chain 
disruptions, and unprecedented inflationary pressures. Without 
question, we are facing a crippling emergency.

    I believe in the ongoing training of my teachers, which is why we 
at ACCA invest heavily in creating professional development 
opportunities, including apprenticeships, and in supporting teacher-
child ratios and group sizes that allow educators to practice their 
craft in safe settings for adult and child well-being.

    Across the country, the reality of the system's shoestring funding 
is that some teachers still earn such low wages that they rely upon 
food stamps to make ends meet. Often, teachers earn poverty wages even 
though a majority have achieved some higher education level.

    Being an early childhood educator had its challenges before the 
pandemic, but COVID has layered additional responsibilities onto 
teachers, who are overburdened, underpaid, and challenged daily by 
doing a job where we are considered essential yet often treated as 
dispensable. As a sector, child care is facing the most significant 
staffing challenge we have ever had, as educators leave the field to 
get higher-paying jobs that address their families' economic security. 
Child care teachers are among the lowest-paid workers in America. In 
Virginia, the median hourly wage for a child care teacher still is $15 
or less. Not surprisingly, more than 25 percent of teachers exit the 
field each year.

    Because our Country has not sufficiently funded necessary support 
and fair compensation, programs, families, and children feel the impact 
of early learning educators who decide to leave the field. I cannot 
tell you how difficult it is to hire qualified teachers to lead ACCA 
classes and support our children and families through trauma, learning 
loss, toxic stress, food insecurity, and more.

    Let me make one thing very clear. We are not babysitters. Early 
childhood educators are professionals responsible for day-to-day 
interactions that influence the developing brain architecture of 
children. Disparities in development begin to emerge in infancy and 
widen over time without consistent, nurturing care and high-quality 
learning opportunities provided by effective, competent, well-trained, 
and well-compensated educators. This is what we do at ACCA. We invest 
in our teachers and ensure children have equitable access to proven, 
quality, research-based, and developmentally appropriate learning 
experiences.

    Make no mistake. ECE investment is a national security imperative. 
If America is to continue to lead the world, it needs an educated, 
healthy, resilient, innovative, and competitive labor force. This 
begins with the youngest among us.

    At least 70 percent of Americans between ages 17 and 24 are not 
eligible for military service due to obesity, mental health issues, 
drug abuse, or lack of a high school degree. Expanding the pool of 
qualified recruits should not only be a task for the military. 
Addressing childhood obesity, substance addiction, and poor academic 
achievement requires significant funding in our education and public 
health systems. This must include investing in early education because 
many of the lifelong problems cited can start to be positively 
addressed long before children enter elementary school. This is how 
early childhood education can help our military readiness. American 
national security and economic leadership and the strengthening of our 
democracy depend on it.

    Due to the pandemic, thousands of us have risked our lives to serve 
young children and working families. From our perspective, all we ask 
for is the financial support and bipartisan will to give our youngest 
ones a real opportunity at the American Dream. Likewise, families need 
an overhauled early learning ecosystem that provides quality and fair 
access to early education and prepares children for lifelong success. 
Also, tuition needs to be affordable, programs high-quality, and the 
system should work for all, especially underserved working families.

    Without relief and stabilization funds, we would never have 
survived the pandemic. Child care relief funding has kept ACCA and many 
other programs from going under, but we are fearful for the future. 
We--and by ``we'' I mean small child care centers and large child care 
centers, for profit and nonprofit programs, faith-based programs, and 
family child care centers alike--do not want to go back to the 
challenges of the past--we want to be part of the effort to build a 
child care system that will work for our children, our families, our 
staff, and the businesses in our community that rely on us.

    In my mind, our child care system is a cake; too often, we have 
tried to pretend that we can use three eggs for baking a cake that the 
recipe says takes ten eggs, and then we have been surprised when the 
cake does not come out the way it should. It makes no sense for our 
Nation to put so few eggs (or so little money) into child care such 
that educators are paid such low wages and offered minimal benefits 
while parents cannot afford to access it. Reconciliation allows us to 
get so much closer to providing the ten eggs we need. Here is what 
those eggs would lead to:

        (1) Funding that covers the cost of care, which includes fair 
        compensation for the skilled, valuable, and essential work of 
        our early childhood educators,

        (2) Options for families to be able to choose quality child 
        care options in ways that provide stability for them, for their 
        children, and us,

        (3) Alignment between child care and early learning, where 
        centers, homes, and schools support working families and 
        support children's positive growth and development.

    Child care is a lifeline to our families, and early childhood 
educators are essential. I urge you to support us by building on relief 
that has allowed us to keep going and providing substantial and 
sustained investments through reconciliation to rebuild and strengthen 
child care programs like ACCA so we can support parents and children.

    Thank you for listening to my story, and I look forward to your 
questions.
                                 ______
                                 
             [summary statement of maria-isabel ballivian]
    Speaking as the executive director of a high-quality child care 
program, Ms. Ballivian's testimony will focus on the importance of 
strengthening our child care ecosystem and reducing costs for working 
families so that we can support America's children, workers, educators, 
and employers.

    Key points will include:

          Child care is a lifeline to our families and early 
        childhood educators are essential.

          Yet programs face extensive challenges in navigating 
        a broken early childhood education system in which service is 
        too expensive for families, while our operating margins are 
        chronically thin, and teachers earn poverty wages despite their 
        valuable work.

          Quality is of utmost importance in early childhood 
        education. This, along with the need to build supply, is why we 
        need to invest in the early childhood education workforce so 
        that they do not have to rely on public programs like food 
        stamps or leave child care for higher-paying jobs in other 
        fields.

          The situation has worsened in the pandemic, and the 
        reality is that while relief has helped programs on the ground, 
        the lack of certainty and stability has programs facing a 
        crippling emergency.

          Small child care centers and large child care 
        centers, for profit and nonprofit programs, faith-based 
        programs, and family child care centers alike, do not want to 
        go back to the challenges of the past. Rather, we want to be 
        part of the effort to build a child care system that will work 
        for our children, our families, our staff, and the businesses 
        in our community that rely on us.

          That effort must include sufficient support through 
        the reconciliation process. Our child care system is a cake; 
        too often we have tried to pretend that we can use three eggs 
        to bake a cake that the recipe says takes ten eggs, and then 
        we've been surprised when the cake does not come out the way it 
        should. It makes no short-or long-term sense for our Nation and 
        our states to put so few eggs into child care. Reconciliation 
        provides the opportunity we need.
                                 ______
                                 
    The Chair. Thank you very much.
    We will turn to Ms. Reynolds.

 STATEMENT OF ELLEN REYNOLDS, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, GEORGIA 
           CHILD CARE ASSOCIATION, SANDY SPRINGS, GA

    Ms. Reynolds. Good morning, Madam Chair, Ranking Member 
Burr, and the Members of the Committee. I am Ellen Reynolds, 
Chief Executive Officer of the Georgia Childcare Association, 
which serves the 4,400 licensed childcare programs in Georgia. 
Today, I come for you representing the voice of license 
providers, be they family, home, or center based, nonprofit or 
for profit, faith based or secular, or Government funded like 
early Head Start.
    There are over 3.8 small businesses--excuse me, million 
small businesses who educate the country's youngest learners, 
50 percent of which are minority owned businesses. And I thank 
you for this opportunity to speak on their behalf. While I 
recognize today's hearing as partisan, I want to stress that 
prior to this year, childcare has never been a partisan issue.
    I believe it is the sincere desire of this Committee to 
ensure working families have access to high quality, affordable 
childcare, and I would urge you to build--to continue building 
on the rich history of bipartisan work as you consider enacting 
new policies. With testimony limited to 5 minutes, I will get 
straight to our recommendations. We strongly recommend a 
historic investment of at least $400 billion to childcare 
through this year's reconciliation process.
    While we are very grateful for the ARPA's stabilization 
funds, state regulatory agencies and providers are concerned 
about the cliff effect that is coming in September 2023, when 
ARPA stabilization dollars expire, and in September 2024, when 
ARPA discretionary dollars expire.
    Without further investments, the country will face a 
catastrophic decline in access to childcare, as providers will 
no longer be able to pay teachers competitive rates nor provide 
tuition relief for families. We believe funding must be 
included in the reconciliation process because we do not 
believe Congress will allocate enough funding to make a 
material difference in access to childcare through the 
traditional budget process.
    Consider the recently passed omnibus budget bill as exhibit 
A to that point. While we are grateful for the $231 million 
increase to CCDBG, that amounts to a 4.3 percent increase in 
spending. With inflation at 7.5 percent, the funding does not 
help states keep pace with inflation, which has historically 
been the case. This is a prime example of how childcare funding 
has historically eroded over time.
    Congress should fund the historic investments in childcare 
through CCDBG. Why? Because as a practical matter, we do not 
expect a large number of states to participate in either the 
childcare or the universal pre-K program, as outlined in Build 
Back Better as is currently written. Currently, 39 states have 
balanced budget requirements. As Build Back Better is written, 
there is no way for states to accurately estimate the state 
match required to participate.
    Would you commit to buying a house without knowing how much 
your monthly payment would be and whether you earned enough 
money to make that payment? No, and neither will many states, 
and not just the states who refuse Medicaid expansion. Doubt 
me? This is actually reflected in the CBO scoring report, which 
estimates that up to 40 percent of children will not 
participate in Build Back Better's programs.
    To give you an actual current basis for comparison, 
according to Georgia State Licensing Agency, 86 percent of all 
Georgia 4 year olds are currently being served by a licensed 
program in Georgia today. Meaning only 14 percent of all 
Georgia 4 year olds are in an unlicensed setting, such as at 
home with their parents, grandparents, or nanny. Thus, the CBO 
has grossly underestimated demand and the cost of providing the 
program as written in Build Back Better.
    The CCDBG is a carefully crafted bipartisan compromise 
which clearly establishes--with clearly established precedents 
already in place which could be used to expand services and 
increase wages immediately. The naysayers will tell you that 
CCDBG is too broken to be used to expand access to childcare 
while making it affordable for families. In fact, Congress just 
used CCDBG during the pandemic to do just that with the CARES 
Act reconciliation and ARPA dollars.
    Again to use Georgia as an example, Georgia has eliminated 
co-pays and is providing free childcare to all children on 
subsidy for 18 months. All staff, including custodians, chefs, 
bus drivers, will receive $3,000 in supplemental wages directly 
from the state. ARPA stabilization dollars, grants to providers 
further support employee wages as Georgia requires providers to 
spend 70 percent of the stabilization grants on employee wages 
and benefits and family tuition relief.
    Georgia will serve an additional 10,000 children through 
September when the ARPA funds end. Georgia has increased 
provider reimbursement rates for all tiers under our quality 
writing system by 15 percent. And Georgia has increased the 
income eligibility to the maximum of 85 percent of the state 
median income. I have included just a few examples of each of 
the ways your individual states who use CCDBG stimulus funds to 
accomplish similar goals in your states in my written 
testimony.
    Just a few last notes. Having three programs with different 
application eligibility processes would be extremely confusing 
for parents as they struggle finding quality childcare now with 
one streamlined process. BBB would necessitate states to build 
out at least two additional eligibility systems, going against 
the progress we have made in creating one statewide eligibility 
system as the results of the ACA.
    CBO scoring estimates that childcare providers are 
reimbursed--will be reimbursed less in 2028 for childcare than 
they are charging now, but also with caps on tuition, which 
would make paying increased wages to teachers impossible and 
decrease access to childcare from center closures.
    Build Back Better will triple the regulatory burden for 
both state regulatory agencies and the Federal Office of 
Childcare, as each program would likely require a 3-year plan 
with annual progress reports and with monitoring visits of each 
of the three programs at least once every 3 years.
    The Chair. Ms. Reynolds, you are over time. If you could 
just summarize your last comment----
    Ms. Reynolds. Yes--two more paragraphs. Build Back Better 
would cripple the workforce and create shortages by requiring 
all teachers to have bachelor's degrees in 5 years. Georgia has 
achieved that goal with 3,800 lottery funded pre-K classrooms, 
but it took 15 years to reach that goal with funding supports 
from our regulatory agency to attain those degrees. In closing, 
we thank you for elevating childcare to a priority in the 
Nation that needs investment and funding, and we stand ready to 
help you and appreciate any questions.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Reynolds follows:]
                  prepared statement of ellen reynolds
    Good morning, Madam Chair, Ranking Member Burr, and Members of the 
Committee. I am Ellen Reynolds, Chief Executive Officer of the Georgia 
Child Care Association (GCCA), a trade association representing the 
4400 licensed childcare providers in Georgia. Today I come before you 
representing the voice of licensed providers, be they family/home or 
center based, non-profit or for-profit, faith based or secular, or 
government funded like Early Head Start. There are over 3.8 million 
small businesses who educate the country's youngest learners, 50 
percent of which are minority owned businesses, and I thank you for 
this opportunity to speak on their behalf.

    While I recognize today's hearing is partisan, I want to stress 
that prior to this year, childcare has never been a partisan issue. I 
believe it is the sincere desire of this Committee to ensure working 
families have access to high quality, affordable childcare, and I would 
urge you to continue building on the rich thirty-year history of 
bipartisan work as you consider enacting new policies.

    With testimony limited to 5 minutes, I will get straight to our 
recommendations.

    We strongly recommend a historic investment of at least $400 
billion to childcare through this year's reconciliation process.

    We are very grateful for the ARPA stabilization funds, but state 
regulatory agencies and providers are concerned about the cliff effect 
that is coming in September 2023 when ARPA stabilization dollars expire 
and in September 2024 when ARPA discretionary dollars expire. Without 
further investments, the country will face a catastrophic decline in 
access to childcare as providers will no longer be able to pay teachers 
competitive rates nor provide tuition relief for families.

    We believe funding must be included in the reconciliation process 
because we do not believe Congress will allocate enough funding to make 
a material difference in access to childcare through the traditional 
budget process. Consider the recently passed Omnibus Budget Bill as 
``Exhibit A'' to that point. While we are grateful for the $231 million 
increase to CCDBG, that amounts to a 4.3 percent increase to spending. 
With inflation at 7.5 percent, the funding does not help states keep 
pace with inflation, which has historically been the case. This is a 
prime example of how childcare funding has historically eroded over 
time.

    Congress should fund historic investments in childcare through the 
CCDBG:

    Why? Because as a practical matter, we do not expect a large number 
of states to participate in either the childcare or universal pre-k 
program as outlined in Build Back Better. Currently, 39 states have 
balanced budget requirements. As BBB is written, there is no way for 
states to accurately estimate the state match required to participate. 
Would you commit to buying a house without knowing how much your 
monthly payment is and whether you earn enough to make the payment? No, 
and neither will many states (not just the states who refused Medicaid 
expansion).

    Doubt me? This is actually reflected in the CBO's scoring report 
which estimates that up to forty percent of children will not 
participate in Build Back Better's programs. To give you an actual, 
current basis for comparison, according to Georgia's state licensing 
agency, 86 percent of all Georgia four-year-olds are currently being 
served by a licensed program in Georgia today, meaning only 14 percent 
of all Georgia four-year-olds are in an unlicensed setting such as at 
home with a parent, grandparent or nanny. Thus, the CBO has grossly 
underestimated demand and the cost of providing the program as written 
in BBB.

    The CCDBG is a carefully crafted bipartisan compromise with clearly 
established precedents already in place which could be used to expand 
services and increase wages immediately. The naysayers will tell you 
that the CCDBG is too broken to be used to expand access to childcare 
while making it more affordable for families. In fact, Congress used 
CCDBG during the pandemic to do just that with the CARES Act, 
reconciliation, and ARPA dollars.

    Again, to use Georgia as an example:

          Georgia has eliminated copays and is providing free 
        childcare to families for 18 months.

          All staff including custodians, chefs, etc. will 
        receive $3000 in supplemental wages directly from the state.

          APRA stabilization grants further support employee 
        wages as Georgia requires providers to spend 70 percent funds 
        on employee wages and benefits.

          Georgia will serve 10,000 addition children through 
        September when ARPA funds end.

          Georgia has increased provider reimbursement rates 
        for all tiers under our quality rating system by 15 percent

          Georgia has increased the income eligibility to the 
        maximum of 85 percent of the SMI.

    I have included just a few examples of ways each of your individual 
states have used CCDBG stimulus funds to accomplish similar goals in my 
written testimony.

    And just a few last notes:

          Having three programs with different application and 
        eligibility processes would be extremely confusing for parents 
        as they struggle with finding quality childcare now with one 
        streamlined process.

          BBB would necessitate states to build out at least 
        two additional eligibility systems, going against the progress 
        we have made in creating one statewide eligibility system as a 
        result of the ACA.

          CBO scoring report estimates that childcare providers 
        will be reimbursed less in 2028 for childcare than they are 
        charging now but with caps on tuition, which would make paying 
        increased wages to teachers impossible and decrease access to 
        childcare from center closures.

          BBB would triple the regulatory burden for both state 
        regulatory agencies and the Federal office of childcare as each 
        program would likely require a three-year plan with annual 
        reports to progress and with monitoring visits for three 
        programs every three years instead of one.

          BBB would cripple the workforce and create shortages 
        by requiring all teachers to have bachelors degrees in 5 years. 
        Georgia has achieved that goal with our 3,800 lottery funded GA 
        Pre-K classrooms, but it took Georgia fifteen years to reach 
        that goal with funding supports for teachers to obtain degrees 
        which are not included in BBB.

    In closing, the providers across the Nation thank you for your 
support that has kept the childcare industry alive throughout the 
pandemic. They thank you for recognizing the importance of childcare 
and elevating it to a policy priority to build a better, sustainable 
system for families and children going forward. And we stand ready to 
be of assistance in any way we can and encourage you to please reach 
out to the provider voice in your state.

    Thank you for your time.
        Senate HELP Committee Members and ARPA State Highlights

    The following chart includes a list of Members from the Senate 
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee that live in 
states that have used funding from the American Rescue Plan Act (APRA) 
to improve the child care infrastructure. The chart also includes ARPA 
highlights in Arizona, Georgia, Ohio, and West Virginia, as these 
states have red to blue Senators. A full list of state ARPA highlights 
can be found here.


------------------------------------------------------------------------
                Member/State                    ARPA Dollar Highlights
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 Patty Murray (D-WA), Chair    Washington
                                               announced a shift to meet
                                               or exceed the federally
                                               recommended reimbursement
                                               rate (75th percentile of
                                               the current market
                                               rates).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                           Bob Casey (D-PA)    Pennsylvania
                                               provided $600 in pandemic
                                               relief awards to eligible
                                               child care employees.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        Chris Murphy (D-CT)    Connecticut paid
                                               National Association for
                                               the Education of Young
                                               Children (NAEYC) and
                                               National Association for
                                               Family Child Care (NAFCC)
                                               accreditation fees to
                                               help providers maintain
                                               quality.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                       Maggie Hassan (D-NH)    New Hampshire
                                               temporarily raised
                                               reimbursement rates by 10
                                               percent.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                         Jacky Rosen (D-NV)    Nevada
                                               temporarily paid on
                                               enrollment instead of
                                               attendance.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                   John Hickenlooper (D-CO)    Colorado
                                               temporarily paid on
                                               enrollment instead of
                                               attendance.  Colo
                                               rado will be increasing
                                               rates by 5 percent for
                                               the next 2 years.
                                                Colorado
                                               provided testing kits,
                                               per employee, to child
                                               care providers.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                       Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)    Wisconsin started
                                               a Workforce and
                                               Recognition Stipend
                                               program that offered a
                                               stipend of at least $350
                                               for staff.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                           Tim Kaine (D-VA)    Virginia expanded
                                               eligibility to 85 percent
                                               of SMI.
                                               Virginia waived
                                               copayments for eligible
                                               families through the end
                                               of 2021.
                                               Virginia covered
                                               child care costs for
                                               essential workers by
                                               allowing parents seeking
                                               work to be eligible for
                                               financial assistance.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                          Tina Smith (D-MN)    Minnesota will be
                                               increasing rates by 5
                                               percent for the next 2
                                               years.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                       Ben Luj New Mexico became
                                               the first state in the
                                               country to tie
                                               reimbursement rates to
                                               the true cost of quality
                                               care, rather than using a
                                               market rate survey.
                                               Market rate surveys focus
                                               more on what parents pay
                                               rather than the true cost
                                               of providing quality
                                               care, which is often
                                               significantly higher.
                                               New Mexico
                                               provided scholarships for
                                               credentials including,
                                               AAs, Bas, and Mas for the
                                               child care workforce
                                               alongside its wage
                                               supplement program.
                                               New Mexico
                                               provided $1,500 to child
                                               care workers.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Richard Burr (R-NC), Ranking Member    North Carolina
                                               waived copayments for
                                               eligible families through
                                               the end of 2022.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                      Roger Marshall (R-KS)    Kansas covered
                                               child care costs for
                                               essential workers by
                                               allowing parents seeking
                                               work to be eligible for
                                               financial assistance.
                                                Kansas'
                                               Department of Health and
                                               Environment (KDHE)
                                               partnered with Battelle--
                                               a leader in the field of
                                               science and tech--to
                                               provide rapid, self-
                                               delivered COVID-19 tests
                                               to all licensed child
                                               care providers in the
                                               state.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                         Mitt Romney (R-UT)    Utah announced a
                                               shift to meet or exceed
                                               the federally recommended
                                               reimbursement rate (75th
                                               percentile of the current
                                               market rates).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                         Jerry Moran (R-KS)    Kansas covered
                                               child care costs for
                                               essential workers by
                                               allowing parents seeking
                                               work to be eligible for
                                               financial assistance.
                                               Kansas'
                                               Department of Health and
                                               Environment (KDHE)
                                               partnered with Battelle--
                                               a leader in the field of
                                               science and tech--to
                                               provide rapid, self-
                                               delivered COVID-19 tests
                                               to all licensed child
                                               care providers in the
                                               state.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                           Bill Cassidy (R-LA) Louisiana waived
                                               copayments for eligible
                                               families through the end
                                               of 2021.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                             Mike Braun (R-LA) Louisiana waived
                                               copayments for eligible
                                               families through the end
                                               of 2021.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                      Tommy Tuberville (R-AL)  Alabama waived
                                               copayments for eligible
                                               families through the end
                                               of 2021.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                       Ohio    Ohio's Hero Pay
                                               program will provide
                                               $1,200 to child care
                                               employees, divided over 4
                                               quarters.
                                               Ohio covers 10
                                               absent days per 6-month
                                               period when a child using
                                               subsidies is absent.
                                               Child care subsidies are
                                               often paid based on a
                                               child's attendance.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                    Arizona    Arizona lowered
                                               copayments for families
                                               to $1 per day.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                    Georgia    Georgia expanded
                                               to 85 percent of SMI. For
                                               Georgia in particular,
                                               this will enable an
                                               additional 10,000
                                               children to be served
                                               until October 2024.
                                               Georgia is paying
                                               providers full published
                                               tuition rates through
                                               October 2022, making
                                               childcare free to all
                                               families on subsidy
                                               scholarships for 18
                                               months.
                                               Georgia announced
                                               a rate increase of 15
                                               percent in all quality
                                               categories until 2024.
                                               Georgia announced
                                               $1,000 payments to the
                                               child care workforce in
                                               2021 and will provide an
                                               additional two rounds of
                                               payments in 2022 for a
                                               total of $3000 in direct
                                               payments to ECE workforce
                                               including cooks,
                                               custodial staff,
                                               teachers, etc.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                 ______
                                 
                 [summary statement of ellen reynolds]
    The Georgia Child Care Association, representing licensed owners 
and directors of childcare centers make the following recommendations:

    (1) Congress should make an historic investment of at least $400 
billion in childcare through the budget reconciliation process this 
year because the traditional budget process will likely not include 
significant funding to make a material difference in access to 
affordable childcare for working families. If Congress does not, the 
country will face a catastrophic crisis in access to childcare 
nationally when ARPA stimulus funds and discretionary funds end in 
September 2023 and September 2024 respectively.

    (2) Congress should fund childcare through the CCDBG rather than 
creating two new childcare programs for several reasons:

        (a) States are not likely to choose to participate in the 
        childcare and pre-k programs as currently written in Build Back 
        Better because states cannot accurately estimate the cost of 
        their state match, (CBO's scoring document underscores that as 
        it estimates 40 percent of children will not participate).

        (b) The CBO scoring report estimates that childcare providers 
        will be reimbursed less in 2028 for childcare than they are 
        charging now under BBB, but with caps on tuition. Given that 
        the amount estimated by CBO in 2028 is less than providers 
        currently charge parents in states with a low cost of living 
        like Georgia, let alone states like California, there is no way 
        that providers will be able to pay the increased wages and 
        benefits to teachers and staff intended by BBB.

        (c) Capping provider tuition will cripple programs when 
        Congress fails to adequately fund BBB over time as has 
        historically been the case. It is during these times that 
        family copays/tuition are used to pay teachers and enhance 
        quality when congressional funding doesn't keep pace with 
        inflation.

        (d) Creating three childcare programs will create new barriers 
        for parents who currently struggle to access subsidized 
        childcare with one program. Having children in three different 
        programs with three different scopes will be more burdensome 
        for parents, not less.

        (e) New childcare (ages 0-2) and universal pre-k (ages 3-4) 
        programs under BBB would require states to build new 
        eligibility systems for those programs. Without additional 
        funding to create those systems, this may actually undo the 
        progress made under the Affordable Care Act through which 
        states created a single integrated eligibility system so 
        parents can find all benefits for which they qualify in one 
        eligibility system.

        (f) The CCDBG is a carefully crafted bipartisan compromise with 
        clearly established precedents already in place which could be 
        used to expand services and increase wages immediately.

        (g) Congress just proved the effectiveness of using the CCDBG 
        to expand eligibility for families, expand number of children 
        served, eliminate tuition and family copays, increase employee 
        wages, and to increase provider rates for quality rated centers 
        with the CARES Act funding, the Consolidated Appropriations 
        Act, 2021, and the APRA stabilization and discretionary 
        dollars.

        (h) BBB would triple the regulatory burden for both state 
        regulatory agencies and the Federal office of childcare as each 
        program would likely require a 3-year plan with annual reports 
        to progress and monitoring visits for each of the three 
        programs every 3 years instead.

    (3) Congress should eliminate the requirement in statute that all 
universal pre-k teachers have a bachelors degree within 5 years of 
passage of the act because this artificial deadline is unattainable and 
would cripple the industry. Georgia, which has had lottery funded pre-k 
for 4 year olds for 29 years, has attained that goal for the 3800 
lottery funded classrooms, but it took Georgia fifteen (15) years to 
meet that goal. Georgia achieved that goal by providing financial 
supports and incentives and buy tuition support through the lottery 
funded HOPE Scholarship and Grant program where 90 percent of tuition 
is subsidized for ECE teachers because ECE is designated as a ``high 
demand'' career for which there is a shortage of teachers with 
bachelors degrees. BBB does not provide any support or tuition 
assistance to help teachers attain a bachelors degree, and during the 
pandemic, Georgia had to offer waivers for teachers without these 
degrees who were seeking to attain the degree because there were not 
enough teachers to serve all the classrooms of 4 year olds in lottery 
funded Georgia Pre-K. Instead, have the Federal Office of Child Care 
hold states accountable for progress toward a goal of bachelors degrees 
for UPK after an assessment by each state of the time and resources it 
would take to reasonably meet that goal.
                                 ______
                                 
    The Chair. Thank you. We will now begin a round of 5 minute 
questions, and I ask my colleagues to please keep track the 
clock and stay within those 5 minutes. I mentioned earlier that 
the Childcare Development Block Grant serves only one in nine 
eligible children, and even for the families that receive 
benefits under the program, they can't always find affordable 
childcare.
    In fact, half of Americans today live in childcare deserts, 
and those shortages are most prominent in our rural communities 
as well as communities of color. So even as the funding for 
Childcare Development Block Grant has increased, those problems 
have persisted, and the number of children served through that 
block grant have been gradually decreasing over the past 
decade. Workers are still earning poverty level wages, and as 
they leave for higher paying jobs, providers are closing their 
doors.
    We can't ignore those facts, and we need to take what works 
for serving children and families and build on it, and we need 
to realize that the broken pieces should be left behind. So Ms. 
Allvin, let me start with you. Looking at the current state of 
childcare, how does the Democratic substitute address some of 
the systemic failures of the current system?
    Ms. Allvin. Thank you, Senator Murray. I think it is really 
important to think about the system as a whole. And what this 
proposal does that hasn't been done before is to contemplate 
the entire system. Because of the deep scarcity in our history, 
we have always picked pieces of the system and tried to fix it 
at the expense of other pieces.
    For example, as we tried to solve the preschool and three 
and 4 years having access, we watched how the bottom fell out 
of the infant toddler market and the precipitous decline of 
family childcare homes. We watched, I know from my experience 
in Arizona, states are always deciding between do they serve 
more families, or do they actually pay the actual cost of care? 
They are always making Sophie's choice. I think the difference 
in the need and the solution so far have--there has been a huge 
gap.
    Having that match up is really important. Families are 
always trying to decide between affordability and quality and 
sometimes find themselves in solutions where they have to go to 
unlicensed, unregulated, and sometimes unsafe care. And I think 
this starts to solve to that problem.
    I want to specifically address compensation because we have 
seen some really dramatic progress in the last 2 years that 
states have used relief funds to add bonuses, add wage 
supplements. But to be clear, that is not addressing 
compensation systemically and long term. That is a stopgap 
solution in trying to find--to trying to make the market not 
implode. I don't think any of us in this room would stay in a 
field for $24,000 a year, knowing that there might be a bonus 
at the end of it, or there might be a wage supplement at the 
end of it.
    We have to pay professional salaries, health insurance, and 
retirement benefits permanently through employers that align to 
the science and the economics of early childhood education. And 
this gets at that in a way that we have never contemplated 
before.
    The Chair. Thank you. Yes, I say childcare is an economic 
issue. Lack of childcare keeps parents, especially women, out 
of the workforce, and for teachers to whom many receive poverty 
level wages, as we just heard, that increasingly low pay makes 
it very difficult to continue to do what they love when they 
can't afford their own basic necessities. This isn't a red 
state or a blue state issue because parents everywhere in every 
state worry about whether they can find and afford high quality 
childcare.
    That is exactly why the Senate Democratic substitute 
expands eligibility to serve way more eligible children. We 
want as many parents as possible to save money on childcare and 
have better options and a little less stress, so we made this a 
really good deal for the states. The proposal includes a very 
generous match rate for states. 90 percent of costs are covered 
by the Federal Government and the cost of the overall package, 
including childcare, is paid for by raising taxes on big 
corporations.
    The proposal also includes funding for Head Start and local 
Governments if a Governor chooses not to participate. Ms. 
Allvin, I would like to hear your thoughts on state 
participation under the current proposal. And from your 
experience with your state level work and your work at NAEYC, 
are we thinking the right way about state incentives?
    Ms. Allvin. Thank you for the question. I do--when I think 
about this, I do draw on my experience from Arizona, and I know 
that there is always both a partnership between Federal and 
State Governments and also a tension between Federal Government 
and State Governments.
    This notion of are we getting the accountability mechanisms 
right, are we making sure we are keeping good track of taxpayer 
dollars and not being overburdensome. And I think there has 
been a lot of speculation about state take up and state match. 
And I think it is really important to start with some key 
assumptions. From what I have seen, Governors, state 
legislators want childcare to be affordable for families. They 
want early childhood educators to have professional salaries 
and health insurance.
    The childcare employers want to both keep kids safe while 
their parents work and deliver on the quality that we know the 
science dictates. But they have never been able to do that with 
the scarce resources that have been in the system.
    I would be startled based on the last 2 years the 
innovations that we have seen that a state is turning down this 
funding. We have seen enormous increases in getting close to 
paying the actual cost of care in red and blue states, as you 
said, in Arizona, in New Jersey, in Tennessee, in Pennsylvania, 
in Michigan, in Wyoming, in Wisconsin, where they have raised 
rates to get closer to the cost of care.
    I think when Governors have the incentive and have the 
tools, they want to do right by families and children. So I am 
optimistic about how states will take this funding up. I think 
it will take a lot of partnership between the Federal 
Government and the states--and the State Government. But in my 
experience, this has been a bipartisan issue and is something 
that both Governors in all states will consider.
    The Chair. Thank you very much. I am way over time.Senator 
Burr.
    Senator Burr. Thank you, Madam Chair. I agree with Ms. 
Allvin. I think states do want more money for childcare. I 
don't think states want us to run it. And that is what this 
bill does. I mean, with all due respect to my colleagues, when 
you raise the cost by $13,000 a year for childcare, you are now 
above the average private preschool, pre-K, kindergarten, and 
first grade cost of some of the premier private schools in this 
country.
    There may be greater subsidies to a lot of parents, but the 
parents that don't qualify for a subsidy are going to be paying 
about $26,000 per child per year for their childcare. That is 
based upon a progressive analysis of Build Back Better. Now, 
people seem to brush off the fact that CBO, state legislators, 
and policy analysts all have agreed that there are states that 
will opt out of this.
    It has way too much Government, way too many requirements. 
So Ms. Reynolds, in your experience working with state 
legislators over the years, can you talk about the 
consideration state legislators and Governors make when they 
decide whether they can afford to take on programs like this?
    Ms. Reynolds. Yes, Ranking Member Burr. In Georgia, we have 
seen that experience. Obviously, the ACA afforded a very 
generous match of 90,10, and our state, along with many others, 
chose not to take that. If you are talking about the--it is not 
just a 90,10 match. If we are talking about UPK, then you are 
talking about more of like a 33, 34 percent match by states. So 
that becomes exponentially more costly.
    I will tell you one of the things I first heard from our 
regulator, their first concern was we cannot estimate this, and 
I don't know how a State Legislature would, with a 
constitutional balanced budget requirement, go in and commit 
early on to a program that once you are in it, you are really 
committing, even though there is a couple of years ramp up, you 
are really committing to whatever your portion of the match is 
without any real way to estimate that cost. That is a very real 
concern.
    States care about their Triple-A bond rating because that 
is how they bond--that is how they borrow cheap money. And 
while I do think that all State Legislatures do want to provide 
access to quality childcare, they are--in Georgia, like 53 
percent of our budget is absolutely automatically dedicated to 
health care. The next 30 percent is dedicated to K-12 through 
entitlements, no discretion by our Legislature over what they 
are paying for that.
    When you get down to the discretionary funds that they have 
to allocate, you are talking about a limited number of funds, 
at least in a State like Georgia, that has--that entire part 
that they control for all the rest of Government is around 15 
to 20 percent of their fund base. So there is simply not enough 
funds.
    If you can't actually--if you have to commit before you can 
figure out what the cost is, how do you identify the revenue 
sources to absolutely ensure that you have the funding to cover 
the costs?
    Senator Burr. We have offered a lot of plans up here that 
you can't figure it out until you have already passed it, what 
it is going to cost. Even the Chair admitted that they are 
going to be states that opt out of this. And of course, you 
talked about the workarounds. So tell me how those workarounds 
destabilize, or diminish over the decades, the work that has 
been done.
    Ms. Reynolds. Well, I mean, I would say to those who say 
CCDBG doesn't work, I would say the calls coming from in the 
House, it is because into an easy way to fix it--I mean, it is 
because Congress neglected it over time. We can amend those 
laws to encompass 0 to 5. We can amend those laws to expand the 
eligibility that is desired, and we support under BBB. But you 
have to have--and I am sorry, get me back to your original 
question, because I feel like I am going----
    Senator Burr. The damage that would be----
    Ms. Reynolds. Let me--yes, I have got a very specific 
example. So prior to the last reauthorization where you all 
graciously injected $2.5 billion in funding, because CCDBG had 
been underfunded by Congress for so many years, the Federal 
guidelines recommend that you reimburse providers at the 75th 
percentile for quality. Georgia was reimbursing providers at 
the 9th percent of the market rate survey, which is absolutely 
abysmal, absolutely not enough.
    Is what part of what led to a shortage in infant toddler 
care that we are still seeing in Georgia. We were able to make 
great strides without with that last infusion of the 2.5 
billion and bring it closer to the market rates. But if you 
actually funded this and required states to reimburse providers 
of the 75th percentile, that would go a long way to fixing the 
problems the CCDBG.
    Senator Burr. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    The Chair. Senator Casey.
    Senator Casey. Chair Murray, thank you for having this 
hearing. I want to thank you and the Ranking Member for being 
here and to raise these issues. In particular, I wanted to 
thank Chair Murray for her leadership over many, many years on 
the importance, the essential nature of childcare for families.
    We know that access to affordable and high quality early 
care and learning is critical to both child development and to 
our economy. Every study shows that. It is irrefutable. We know 
as well that investments in children more generally allow us to 
have a higher skilled workforce. Investments in children allow 
us to outcompete China or any other country. Investments in 
children help us grow GDP.
    There is even an organization we have all known for at 
least a quarter century, Fight Crime, Invest In Kids. I think 
in a soundbite, they captured the essential nature of 
investments in children. You could substitute other words for 
fight crime, but that is one of the benefits of investing in 
children. So we know this from the data. And yet as a Nation 
and certainly at the Federal level, we haven't done nearly 
enough about it.
    My staff heard recently from a childcare provider in 
Philadelphia about the meaningful difference that childcare 
makes in the lives of families. In this case, a family was in a 
shelter, but because the parents had stable, reliable 
childcare, they were able to find both a job and a home. That 
is because, in part, the childcare stabilization grants that 
were in the American Rescue Plan made that possible.
    In this case, the provider used these grants to raise the 
wages of childcare workers. They are able to retain staff and 
maintain the number of childcare slots that they are providing. 
So it is clear these stabilization grants made a substantial 
difference, but the provider has to make tough choices. They 
couldn't raise wages while also reducing costs for families and 
expanding the number of childcare slots.
    I guess the main question I have, and I ask anyone on the 
panel who wants to take this, how could the bill, the Childcare 
for Working Families Act, have addressed the interwoven 
challenges of childcare costs, access to childcare, and 
workforce shortages?
    Ms. Kashen. Thank you for that question, Senator Casey, and 
for your longtime leadership on children's issues. The bill--
the proposal would make sure that every family who needs it has 
access to affordable, high quality childcare, and it addresses 
all three parts, right.
    It makes sure that it is affordable for families, that the 
care that they are getting for their children is high quality 
and puts money behind that, and it raises wages for early 
educators. And that is a big part of raising quality as well, 
because when you have a stable workforce that is economically 
secure, you can recruit and retain amazing educators to stay 
there.
    The beauty of this proposal is that it really addresses all 
of those by partnering, the Federal Government partners with 
the State Governments, along with parents, and providers, and 
employers. It really brings everyone together to serve children 
and families much better.
    Senator Casey. Anybody else want to comment on the bill?
    Ms. Reynolds. I will just like to add that I think one way 
that it can be improved, Build Back Better, in terms of when 
you are trying to get to that goal. We--the research absolutely 
supports the bachelor's degrees and training, and credentials 
does enhance quality.
    But the reason Georgia has been able to do it is because we 
had stipends and tuitions to support, and we--through the 
quality dollars--and we also had lottery funded scholarships 
that we are--childcare was designated by Governor Deals a high 
demand field where we have a shortage and that was, he left 4 
years ago to the Chair's point about how long we have been 
struggling with these issues with wages, to help them.
    I do think the funding is--we want to increase wages but 
increasing their wages won't be simply enough to say, oh, then 
they can go spend the money on tuition to go achieve these 
higher quality degrees and training and lift the quality of the 
programs. I really want to encourage you as you consider 
deliberations to either look at like we have done with doctors, 
if they go into childcare deserts, that tuition is forgiven or 
to find some tuition supports to help teachers.
    Because I do not--if you raise the wages but turn around 
and require them to do the degrees, you are really not helping 
them manage their daily home and have enough income for a 
living wage if it has got to turn around and be spent on 
tuition.
    Senator Casey. Thanks very much. Thanks, Chair Murray.
    The Chair. Senator Scott.
    Senator Scott. Thank you, Chair Murray, for the opportunity 
to address the witnesses on such an important topic around 
childcare and preschool, looking for ways to really improve the 
outcome for the kids who are growing up in sometimes 
challenging circumstances. I think about good intentions. I 
think both sides probably have good intentions when it relates 
to the conversation and sometimes the debate around providing 
high quality childcare to folks who are in desperate need of 
it.
    I think about the approach that was going to be taken in 
the Build Back Better plan. That approach would have increased, 
according to the progressive think tanks, increased the cost of 
childcare from $15,888 to around $29,000. In an attempt to make 
childcare more affordable, I think they would have made 
childcare less affordable.
    Again, we look at creating multiple systems or at least a 
different approach to childcare that actually is harder to 
manage for the average family when you think about the 12 
million kids today who are in childcare that is not fuzzed to a 
family member. Those kids need the highest quality of access 
possible.
    If we want to see folks coming back to work, solving this 
problem, bridging the gap is so critically important to the 
kids who are literally looking for a safe place to learn, 
parents who are looking for a way to be able to have their kids 
in a safe environment, a good environment so they can continue 
to work because you can't be at work and at home at the same 
time. And we saw that challenge exacerbated throughout the 
pandemic.
    Parents who needed to be at work but could not find a place 
for their kids had to make what was an easy choice for most 
parents, taking care of your kids first. That is why so many 
parents work. And so one of the things I have done over the 
last four or maybe 6 years ago is make sure that we kept the 
choice in the hands of the parents.
    Through the legislation and the amendments that I made, the 
legislation several years ago, and today I introduced 
legislation, the Childcare and Development Block Grant 
Reauthorization Act of 2022 because the Childcare and 
Development Block Grant program has assisted working families 
and their children for more than 30 years, all while ensuring 
that parents have maximum freedom to make the best decisions 
for their children.
    In South Carolina today, thousands upon thousands of kids 
under the age of six and their parents in the workforce need 
those options in their quiver, so to speak, to make the best 
decisions for their kids. This is a lifeline for low income 
families looking to participate in the workforce or continue 
their education.
    This bill also traditionally enjoyed immense bipartisan 
support. That is why we are actually having a conversation, in 
my opinion, today. My new bill would make responsible 
enhancements to the CCDBG program to better support America's 
working families. One very important part that has been there 
the need to continue to be there is giving vouchers so that 
parents can make the best decisions for their kids.
    Ms. Reynolds, with my minute left, I know that you 
understand and appreciate this issue. You also represent 900 
license centers in Georgia. I believe that the nature of choice 
is critical for parents and their peace of mind while they are 
working. Can you address the importance of that flexibility?
    Ms. Reynolds. Absolutely. And I think you have heard every 
single panelist up here support that. So what I would like you 
to see is that the industry is united, and we know that the 
bill has moved significantly in the direction of recognizing 
that mixed delivery is key, whether it is for profit, not for 
profit sector, whether it is in Head Start, whether it is in 
private providers. Families come with different needs.
    Children come with different needs. And we also, I want to 
stress that, because sometimes I think this point gets lost, I 
agree that we have never looked at dividing childcare and 0 to 
2 and then 3 to 4. It is a 0 to 5 process for us. We know that 
a child's brain is 80 percent of the way--the flexibility ends 
at around 3 or minimizes and 80 percent develops when they hit 
age 3.
    We really want parents to have all of the choices so that 
they can identify, as their child comes with unique needs, some 
maybe disabilities, some maybe challenges with sensory 
developments, whatever it is, they can work and find that 
opportunity that is best for their child. And so I think that 
is a very key component to it that I think Build Back Better 
has incorporated over time as well. Like it is--we all believe 
in the parents having choice.
    Senator Scott. Thank you so much. Sorry, I ran over time. 
Thank you.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Murphy.
    Senator Murphy. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. This is 
as important a hearing as we are going to have. When I am in 
Connecticut, especially as a parent of two school aged kids 
myself, I know that nothing causes parents to tear their hair 
out more than dealing with the increasingly unaffordable cost 
of childcare and the relative unavailability of quality 
childcare options today.
    We are a family that can afford care for our kids, and yet 
it frankly takes up hours and hours every week just trying to 
arrange that care and make sure that it is there. So let me 
just delve into two subjects that I wanted to touch on today, 
and I thank you all for your tremendous testimony and working 
in this critical field.
    First to you, Ms. Kashen. I want to talk a little bit about 
the employer's perspective on the investment that we are 
contemplating. In Connecticut, we have a lot of major companies 
that have frankly asked the State Legislature for a big public 
sector commitment to childcare. Just a handful of them that 
have testified recently in Connecticut, Bigelow Tea, General 
Dynamics, Electric Boat, Boehringer Hartford Health Care.
    124,000 parents of young kids in Connecticut said in a 
recent survey that, we believe that 124,000 parents have 
testified that their work has been disrupted by childcare 
issues. And employers see this too, their inability to recruit 
good talent because of the lack of availability of childcare.
    I remember meeting one young woman, a parent of two, who 
was out of the workforce simply because she couldn't find care 
for her youngest child. And of course, that story can be 
replicated literally millions of times over people, who are out 
of the workforce for one reason only, because they can't find 
childcare. That hurts them, but it also hurts employers, too. 
So what is employers' take on the status of childcare 
affordability and how it impacts their bottom lines?
    Ms. Kashen. Senator, that is exactly right. There is a huge 
push by business leaders to invest--for Congress to invest in 
childcare, and that is because they know that business 
disruptions cost a lot of money childcare related business 
disruptions. The report that I just did with the Center for 
Economic Policy Research found that across the Nation, we could 
gain $60 billion in economic activity by reducing those 
childcare related business disruptions.
    That is a lot of money. But the other thing is just a very 
personal piece too, I think about Jessica and Jason Morrison in 
Pennsylvania, who Jessica works full time. They have two kids. 
Jason has been home during the day, taking care of their kids, 
and he works for Uber and Lyft at night and on weekends. So 
basically they are not really seeing each other. He was offered 
a great job.
    He was very excited. The employer was so excited to have 
him. They could not find or afford childcare. They found 
waitlists. They found blocks every chance they got. And so he 
had to say no to that job. And that is what is happening a lot 
around the country for dads, for moms who cannot do the work 
they want to do because they don't have access to affordable 
childcare.
    Senator Murphy. I think it is important to put it in that 
broader economic context. Second question, I want to drill down 
on a particular time of the year that is really tough for 
parents. I will pose this question to Ms. Evans Allvin on 
behalf of the industry, but I know others could answer as well.
    As Senator Murray knows, I have spent a lot of time on this 
Committee talking about the importance of good summer 
programing for kids. I thought it would have been a mistake to 
just send kids back to summer school last year. I thought that 
they needed a little bit more sort of holistic and 
comprehensive care. But parents will tell you that summer is 
the nightmare, and the amount of time and energy they spend 
trying to get their kids in good care and the amount of income 
that they forego during the summer, is really extraordinary.
    A recent survey suggested that 57 percent of families said 
that at least one parent made a sacrifice during the summer to 
care for kids that involved a reduction of income. That is 
catastrophic for families that are living paycheck to paycheck. 
What is the particular barriers that families face during the 
summer, and how can the proposals that we are considering help?
    Ms. Allvin. Senator, I can tell you from personal 
experience with three children that the summer is a nightmare, 
and I get nervous every time we start planning for what the 
activities will be in the summer and how we are going to figure 
it out and wing it, as most families do. And that is why the 
idea of full day, full year care, birth to 5 is really 
important. We don't solve this problem with just a part day 
program or just a small investment. We solve it when it is full 
day for you--full day, full year care.
    That is the notion of both keeping kids safe while their 
parents work, which happens in a full year, and maximizing on 
what we know the science of high quality early childhood 
education. You really look at, Ellen might have mentioned this, 
but look at also how the field has responded over the last 2 
years with the pandemic.
    Other than a brief shutdown at the beginning of the 
pandemic for public health reasons, childcare has largely been 
open and childcare providers, early childhood educators have 
made herculean efforts to ensure that children are safe, that 
it is a safe environment, but it is still that it is a high 
quality, early learning environment, and we have watched that 
happen. They have done it on shoestring budgets, and it is just 
not fair, it is not fair, and we send the wrong message to them 
when we do that.
    I also just want to take a minute to address the question 
about costs to families. I am not sure where we are getting the 
statistics that this is going to increase cost by $13,000 to 
families. And in fact, it is free for 3 and 4 year olds. It is 
pre-K that is free for 3 and 4 year olds.
    What I have seen, the cost estimates that I have seen goes 
as far as for a family earning $130,000 a year to drop costs by 
$13,000. So I just think we need to get clear on kind of the 
impact that will have and make sure that we are aligned on the 
math that we are using.
    Senator Murphy. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Kaine.
    Senator Kaine. Thank you, Chair Murray and Ranking Member 
Burr. And thanks to the witnesses. So I am a--I was a Mayor and 
I was a Governor. I would love this democratic plan in either 
of those roles, and I was a parent of three kids. And over the 
course of their early childhood, they were sometimes at home 
with my wife, sometimes in a home base setting that somebody 
else was running, sometimes in a public school pre-K program, 
sometimes in a church based pre-K program.
    I have seen this as a parent, and I would love this plan. I 
agree that the capping of out of pocket costs at 7 percent of 
income will save a family that is at $130,000 about $13,000 a 
year. The average family will save about $5,000 a year. But 
what I want to really do right now is, I am amazed at the 
bipartisan nature of this hearing in terms of what people are 
agreeing on here.
    There are some differences on details but let me just 
summarize what all of our witnesses and I think thus far are 
the people who are asking questions agree on. One, that a 
greater investment in high quality childcare would be good for 
kids. Two, that the greater investment would be good for 
families. Three, that the greater investment would be good for 
educators.
    Four, that the greater investment would be good for the 
workforce. So we all agree on all of that. The second point of 
agreement, in terms of second beyond the virtues, is our 
witnesses have basically agreed, Chair Murray, with your 
proposed--the size of your proposed investment. You have a 
proposal on the table for early childhood and pre-K that is a 
$382 billion proposal.
    Ms. Allvin talks about, quote from page two of her 
testimony, ``the $400 billion investment in childcare and pre-K 
outlined in Senator Murray's most recent proposal rightly 
posits and reflects what the American public believes.'' That 
is Ms. Allvin's testimony. Ms. Reynolds' testimony, page one, 
``we strongly recommend a historic investment of at least $400 
billion to childcare through this year's reconciliation 
process.''
    You have a $382 billion proposal. The witnesses invited by 
both Democrats and Republicans have said it should be a $400 
billion proposal. We never hear that at a Committee hearing 
like this, where people are in agreement on it. And there are 
other areas of agreement among the witnesses.
    One, that the ARPA moneys that we voted on last March 
really, really helped. Second, that we need to keep pre-K and 
childcare as we are thinking about making an investment, we 
need to keep both aligned. You can't just sort of touch one 
part of the system and not the other without maybe having some 
unintended consequences. That is important. Third, that we need 
a mixed delivery system that will provide for high quality 
provision, whether it is in a public school or home based 
setting, a nonprofit, a for profit, a faith based setting, 
mixed delivery is really important.
    Finally, that we want any setting to be high quality. We 
never have a hearing like this where we agree on so much. That 
is not to downplay that there are some differences in how do we 
make this happen, but the notion that everybody seems to agree 
that we need to do this, and it needs to be at an investment 
level, Chair Murray, that is higher than your proposal 
slightly, that is extremely heartening.
    Now, Ms. Ballivian, I want to ask you this question, 
because of the particular childcare center at Annandale, a 
Christian Child Center that you work at. Talk about the 
importance of making sure that we are supporting a mixed 
delivery model, to include not just public school settings, but 
the broad spectrum of high quality childcare that we have in 
the Commonwealth and in the Country.
    Ms. Ballivian. Thank you for your question. I think there 
is a true cost for childcare and a cost that we need to pay in 
the right moment or at the wrong moment. In my experience, I 
have seen how children benefit from the work that I do. I have 
seen how families depend on us to provide for their families, 
to provide for their children. And I have also seen what 
happens when we are not there for them. What happens when they 
are not having access to the services that we offer.
    Let me tell you, we are at a moment in America when we 
cannot afford not to be there for those children and those 
families. The importance of having children ready to enter the 
schools, ready to enter our military, ready to make a 
difference in the world is huge, and the pandemic has just made 
this even more important.
    Every day I am opening the door of our program to children 
that are not coming with what they need to succeed, and the 
work that we are doing helps in so many ways. Just take the 
fact that children in our program are getting healthy meals 
every day. Children in our program are learning to make healthy 
choices.
    We have a curriculum that supports all areas of their 
development. We are giving them an opportunity to have an equal 
chance to improve their lives, and with that, improve our 
economy, and with that, improve the position that we have in 
the world.
    Senator Kaine. Ms. Ballivian, thank you so much. And thanks 
to all the witnesses. Chair Murray, I yield back.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Braun.
    Senator Braun. Thank you, Madam Chair. No doubt about it. 
Coming from the world of running a business just 4 years ago, 
childcare is something that I think employers definitely are 
trying to find what the right solution is. I remember in my 
hometown of Jasper, Indiana, one of the leading companies that 
started right there actually did that years ago. And then, I 
think found that it was too complicated, and then let the rest 
of the providers there locally take it over, which would have 
been, even to this date, less of an issue than what I think it 
is nationally.
    But that would be our good fortune where many would not 
share that. And of course, from that variety of faith based, 
local entrepreneurs doing it. I guess the one thing that gives 
me pause is that we are talking about an amount of money that 
if it were in the original construction of Build Back Better, 
it would have been half of what we spent back in 2008 and 2009 
roughly through TARP, and the idea that we want to commandeer 
something else again at the Federal level.
    I know from the little over 3 years I have been here, the 
natural default is when you have got issues that are of 
concern, parents, employers, just taking care of our kids in 
general, this is a place that people look to. I found that it 
generally ends up creating a lot of investment that sometimes 
does not hit the mark.
    I think what I am interested in from among the panelists 
and got maybe a little less than a minute each is, do we need 
more Federal Government in it, or should we be looking to 
employers and states that almost categorically seem to get 
things done more effectively and affordably? So give me your 
general comments on that and we will start on the left over 
here.
    Ms. Allvin. Thank you, Senator. I absolutely believe that 
the programs and providers in this country that are providing 
childcare are the right providers to be providing care. This is 
a market based system that faith based programs need to be in 
and private providers. So I absolutely believe that the market 
sits where the market should be and that should continue to sit 
in that place.
    At the same time, the financing, the economics of that 
market are fundamentally broken. They have been for forever. 
The supply and demand don't match. And I don't see this as the 
Government starting to insert itself in the delivery of 
services and how programs are run or the experiences that 
children have, but rather to give parents more choices by 
providing financing support to a broken economic structure.
    In our system, I think it is pretty common. You see the 
Federal Government step in, in other industries where that has 
been the case. And so I don't think it is unusual to ask the 
Federal Government to make an investment in an industry that by 
itself, the supply and demand don't meet.
    Senator Braun. Thank you.
    Ms. Kashen. Thank you, Senator. I would agree with that. 
Basically, states would like to do the right thing. states 
would like to invest more in childcare. They are doing more in 
preschool, but the money just isn't there. And the Federal 
Government needs to partner with them to address the fact that 
there is a broken market there. That the costs, the prices that 
parents are paying is high, and yet the wages that early 
educators are making is low. It is a broken market.
    The way to solve that is for the Federal Government to 
invest the funds needed so that the states can help run the 
programs through the local community programs. And so I think, 
as you know, as Ms. Reynolds said, we all agree there should be 
really diverse settings, that the funding should go to a 
childcare center in one community and family childcare in 
another, and a faith based program in another.
    That is what parental choice is all about, actually putting 
in the money to build the supply of childcare that is available 
for every family who needs it.
    Senator Braun. Thank you.
    Ms. Ballivian. No matter--thank you for the question. And 
no matter whether your children are in a nonprofit 
organization, for profit program in the school system, or in a 
family childcare setting, we all understand the importance of 
high quality care and education. So far, that quality cost has 
been put on the burden of the providers. We can no longer 
continue to sustain that. We are getting to the point where we 
are thinking we need to provide for our families. We can no 
longer afford to bring milk at the end of the day.
    Without Federal funding, where are we going to put the 
costs of these? Back on the families? They cannot afford that 
either. 90 percent of the children that are served have 
families that are eligible for subsidies as they stand now. 
They deserve and they are benefiting, and we are benefiting 
from the programs that we are running, but the funding needs to 
come from everyone. We all benefit from the work that we do. It 
is just fair that we all pitch in and help a little.
    Senator Braun. Thank you.
    Ms. Reynolds. Thank you, Senator. What I would say is 
absolutely in agreement. states don't have the funding, they 
cannot do this without the Federal partnership. The flip side 
of that, I would say, is that we do want to preserve, and I 
think part of the pushback I have heard is that from the 
Governor's office in Georgia and even in Alabama, because I 
talked to them regular too, is that we still need some 
discretion in how we apply the program.
    I would argue, the Office of Childcare has traditionally 
been one more of technical assistance rather than oversight and 
licensing. So the experts at the actual like how this is going 
to implement on the ground are the state licensing agencies. I 
think the Federal role for the Federal office is to make sure 
where states are falling behind, like if we want to get to that 
bachelor's degree requirement, well, look, Georgia, you have 
already done it for 4 year olds, so let's start working on 3 
year olds.
    But there are states that may not have done it for 4 year 
olds. So that is where the Federal Government comes into play. 
But states very much want autonomy over eligibility limits--
they want a range. They--it is just like the Federal 
Government. Everybody wants some autonomy in the process, and 
they are going to want some of that flexibility.
    Senator Braun. Thank you. We are over the time and just one 
last statement, be careful who you choose as a long term 
business partner. Currently, every additional dollar we spend 
here, we borrow it, and 30 percent of our budget in general is 
borrowed. Not a good long term business partner. That is the 
point I need to make in light of trying to find a solution to 
an important issue. Thank you.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Hassan.
    Senator Hassan. Well, thank you so much, Madam Chair and 
Ranking Member Burr, for this hearing. And thanks to our 
witnesses, not only for being here, but for the really 
important work that you all do. I want to start with the 
question to Ms. Kashen. Families across the country are 
struggling with rising costs, including the high cost of 
childcare.
    Right now, programs like Head Start and the Childcare 
Development Block Grant program help a relatively small number 
of families, but most middle class granite staters for 
childcare needs don't have access to these programs. The lack 
of access to safe, affordable childcare is keeping some parents 
out of the workforce, exacerbating our workforce shortages, and 
hindering economic growth. So how would expanding Federal 
investment in childcare help lower costs for more families in 
New Hampshire and all across the country?
    Ms. Kashen. Thank you so much for that question. So what 
this proposal would do is give every family the freedom to 
choose what works best for them that is affordable, and it 
would do that by building out the supply of childcare. So it 
addresses all the different parts of the puzzle. It addresses 
making it more affordable for families. It addresses putting 
money into the sector to make sure that states can help to grow 
the local supply of childcare in any different type of setting.
    It makes sure that programs are quality. One of the things 
that Ms. Reynolds has mentioned is a BA, and one of the great 
things about this proposal, it puts money into help support 
early educators to get additional credentialing and to do the 
kinds of things that they would want to do.
    I think this really will guarantee childcare for every 
eligible family to support those parents who are working and 
make sure that they have stable and reliable, safe, nurturing 
care for their children.
    Senator Hassan. Thank you so much. Ms. Allvin, a question 
for you. There are many rural areas around the country, 
including in my home State of New Hampshire, where families do 
not have access to high quality, early education programs. This 
is in part because of a limited supply of childcare centers, 
and because of difficulty filling staff vacancies. Ms. Allvin, 
how could additional Federal dollars help increase the 
availability of early education programs in rural communities?
    Ms. Allvin. Thank you. And I, having spent a lifetime in 
Arizona, know of what you speak. We did an enormous amount of 
work with our rural communities, with our tribal communities, 
and the conundrum of childcare that we have talked about today 
is even harder in rural communities. And so you have seen not 
only the lack of access, but the lack of access for providers--
for early childhood educators to higher education. You have 
seen, you have to have scale in order for the profit or the PNL 
to work in childcare to break even. You can't do that in small, 
rural programs.
    This precipitous decline in family based childcare is 
coupled with a squeeze that is even worse for rural programs. 
And again, CCDBG is foundational, it is critical, and it hasn't 
solved the problem of rural childcare in America. And what the 
proposal on the table does is create the incentives, the 
structure for rural communities to be able to invest in ways 
that the scarcity that sits in CCDBG hasn't allowed us to do 
over time.
    I think it will be really important. We always hear from 
rural communities that they feel as though they are left out, 
that they are left behind, and it is true that. That is the 
case, that is what they have experienced. And creating this 
floor of quality expectations and creating a floor of financing 
that says, we are with you, we have got this, even if these are 
tiny programs that have trouble making ends meet, we will be 
there as partners for you.
    Senator Hassan. Well, thank you for that. I really 
appreciate it. Look forward to continuing to work with you on 
this. Ms. Ballivian, thank you for all the work that you are 
doing to support young children and families in your care. I 
want to highlight the importance of early intervention for 
young children. Over the past 2 years, many early intervention 
specialists, like speech and occupational therapists, have 
often not been able to screen children in a timely manner for 
additional services that they need.
    That results in screening backlogs. I recently introduced a 
bill that would increase funding for early intervention 
services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act 
to better support infants and toddlers with disabilities. How 
do you think additional Federal support for early interventions 
will help you address the needs of families who have infants, 
toddlers, and young children with disabilities?
    Ms. Ballivian. I think it is crucial to have additional 
support. The services that we are getting right now are just 
simply not enough to meet the needs that we see. In our 
program, about 40 percent of the children that we are currently 
serving have an IFSB or an IB already. And yet those services 
are not really able to meet all their needs. A lot of the work 
is left to the teachers that are caring for them during 
extended hours during the day. And services go out during the 
summertime, for example.
    We have children that are bussed in to receive services in 
a nearby school for a couple of hours a day, and then we are 
being left with caring for them and supporting their needs 
through the entire day as their parents are working. Receiving 
additional support to meet those needs would make such a huge 
difference in their lives, but also it would alleviate some of 
the stressors that we have in our work.
    Senator Hassan. Well, thank you and I appreciate that. And 
just, I note how important it is that early intervention 
services start truly early, so any kind of backlog in screening 
is obviously its own kind of delay and has a ripple effect. So 
I thank you so much for all your work. Thank you, and thank 
you, Madam Chair.
    The Chair. Senator Murkowski.
    Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Madam Chair, and to the 
Ranking Member. Really appreciate the opportunity to have these 
discussions this morning. I think it is pretty clear out there 
that our childcare provider is in this country, certainly in my 
state, are really barely making ends meet. Providers are 
competing with other employers for workers. That makes it a 
challenge.
    Far too many parents cannot afford high quality childcare, 
even if they can find it. And so how we address this and treat 
it in the--with the serious nature that it demands, recognizing 
that we have to value the services, the care, the commitment 
that come from childcare providers for our little ones--and if 
you look at it, it doesn't look like we place that value on it.
    That is certainly what we are hearing from you all this 
morning. So I appreciate that we are looking to ways to ensure 
that we are providing more support, that we are really 
providing for value. But I also recognize that it is not always 
about the money. The money is important. But I have looked at 
the Build Back Better and some of the--some of the provisos 
within that and how it might apply in my state, and I am glad 
that Senator Hassan had raised the issue of childcare in rural 
areas.
    We have got situations where we would love to ensure that 
all of our childcare workers, all of our childcare families are 
licensed providers and would be able to participate in 
something that would allow them to receive subsidies. But 
sometimes what we have in small areas, remote areas, you have 
got in-home childcare providers who are often unlicensed, not 
due to lack of quality, but they may be in a village that does 
not have running water into everyone's home. It does not have a 
flush toilet into everyone's home.
    That perhaps heats their home by woodstove. One example of 
just kind of you would never thought of this, in order to be 
licensed, you have to have a yearly inspection of fire 
extinguishers that are on the premises, but it can cost up to 
$3,500 to fly an individual to a village to inspect the fire 
extinguishers on an annual basis. And so a lot of times what 
you have are really qualified individuals, but they can't meet 
these licensure requirements.
    Another challenge that we have looked at within Build Back 
Better would require that providers participate in their 
state's quality improvement system and rate high in that system 
within just a couple of years. But in Alaska, less than half of 
our providers participate in our quality rating system because 
it has not yet been completely built out. It only has two of 
the five levels of quality ratings that are available so far.
    I am looking at this and I am saying, alright, what is it 
that we have to do in order to really make sure that we have 
quality providers, that our families are able to afford the 
care for their children, but we have got to make it work here. 
And so I don't want us to be in a situation where we were with 
No Child Left Behind, where the one size fits all approach 
didn't fit a rural State like Alaska. And we had to work and 
fight for exemptions and waivers from everything, not because 
we didn't want to achieve high standards, but because some of 
them were virtually and practically impossible.
    Ms. Reynolds, I see you are nodding your head here in 
agreement about some level of flexibility. And that is why I 
have looked at what Senators Burr and Scott intend to introduce 
with regards to the CCDBG program because it does allow for 
additional flexibility. But how--let me ask you, Ms. Reynolds, 
I am going to stop my soliloquy here and ask, if you are 
concerned about another one size fits all in an effort to try 
to address what I think we all agree is a very real problem 
with how we provide for quality childcare for our kids and our 
families that are needing to access them.
    Ms. Reynolds. Thank you for that question. And absolutely, 
Senator Murkowski. That is kind of what I was getting at with 
having the arbitrary 5 year degree for bachelor's degrees 
because you got to meet a state where they are. And in Georgia, 
we don't have that problem, and it would not have occurred to 
me that it could cost $3,500 to fly an inspector to check those 
things.
    I think it is very real. We had the same thing with quality 
rated. We just, this year and it was supposed to be a year ago, 
but it got delayed because the pandemic, required you cannot 
take subsidized childcare and provide those services if you are 
not quality rated. Also, just for the first time with the ARPA 
funds was the first time they ever actually gave a bonus to 
people that had signed up for quality rated but were not 
quality rated. It is the first time our state has ever 
recognized----
    Senator Murkowski. Wait can I--what do you mean? They 
signed up for it--they weren't quality rated. What----
    Ms. Reynolds. You are now considered, if you are in the 
process moving toward being quality rated, you were counted as 
being in the process. They had benchmarks you had to meet. If 
you didn't meet those, then they would just enroll you some 
program. But they--if you are a low income center in a rural 
area without a lot of funding, it--how are you supposed to get 
to quality rated if there is no funds for you to help get that 
quality rating. And our licensing agency 10 years ago was very 
innovative and went out and raised $10 million in the private 
sector to try to help do some of those incentives.
    But thanks to the ARPA dollars, they now actually are 
offering those funds because that is something we need in 
Georgia. And we have a lot of the rural areas just like 
Arizona, a lot of the childcare deserts. That is where I do--so 
it is at both ends, right. We absolutely need the Federal 
investment. States cannot do it on their own.
    We absolutely need the Federal of the childcare to help us 
in making these benchmarks. But also states look very 
different. Georgia looks different than Alaska that looks 
different than Vermont or Maine. So that is where we do need 
some discretion for states to look at where they are, take the 
goals of the Build Back Better, and try to work toward 
achieving those goals, but starting where they are, and we need 
the Federal Office of Childcare to have that flexibility. And 
they did this honestly with the background check.
    Georgia pass a background check before the Federal law came 
into effect. Georgia had far more stringent requirements. The 
Office of Federal Childcare did not let us reduce our 
requirements, they said Georgia, you are good where you are, 
even though Alabama and South Carolina is not where you are, so 
we are going to meet them further back, but you have got to 
have that flexibility because states look very different.
    A building capacity in each state looks very different. So, 
but I also don't think you can do it without the Federal 
investment because there is not the funds available at the 
state level to do it.
    Senator Murkowski. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. 
Appreciate the conversation.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Smith.
    Senator Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. I really appreciate 
this hearing. And Madam Chair, as you laid out in your opening 
remarks, and as the witnesses have described so fully, the lack 
of affordable, high quality childcare and pre-K is a major 
problem for families and for businesses, and it is holding our 
economy back.
    As you said, and as I have seen in Minnesota, our childcare 
system is fundamentally broken for parents and kids, for 
businesses who are looking to recruit and retain talent, and 
for providers. And Ms. Ballivian, I couldn't help but notice 
the catch in your voice as you were describing what it is like 
to try to keep a childcare center together in the face of these 
deep challenges.
    I have heard that in the voices of providers in Minnesota 
over and over again, especially in rural parts of the state. I 
also have to say I agree with what Senator Kaine was saying a 
few moments ago. As a former Lieutenant Governor, the kind of 
strategy that we are talking about advancing here is exactly 
what I would like to have seen.
    I remember as Lieutenant Governor asking the question, what 
would we need to do to clear out the Childcare Assistance 
Program, which was the state, Federal CCDBG program. Like what 
would it take to actually be able to fill the list, to provide 
care for everybody who's on the list? And I was essentially 
told, well, that is just not really possible. That is never 
going to happen. So I think that the issues, the proposals that 
we are talking about here have broad bipartisan support.
    The cost of inaction--I am so in touch with from the 
conversations I have had in Minnesota. So let me just dive into 
this a little bit in terms of costs because everybody is 
talking about lowering costs for families. Certainly, Democrats 
are focused on doing everything we can to lower costs for 
families. So consider this, this is from the Federal Reserve 
Bank of Minneapolis that noted the lack of affordable childcare 
has forced many parents to drop out of the labor force to care 
for children, where some childcare costs now exceed their 
wages.
    More than three quarters of respondents in the survey that 
they did identified affordable childcare as a significant or 
extreme challenge for job seekers. In Minnesota, where we are 
one of the higher cost states for childcare, I hear about this 
all the time. It should not cost working families a year's 
worth of in-state college tuition to pay for childcare, when we 
have a plan right now to solve this problem that can lower 
families costs, it can improve quality, it can increase the 
supply of childcare, and it can raise wages for childcare 
providers and for businesses so that it all works.
    Let me just ask this. I am going to direct this question to 
Ms. Allvin first. Some of our Republican colleagues have 
proposed a reauthorization of CCDBG as a solution to this 
childcare crisis. Can you tell me, is this really a solution to 
the problem that ails our childcare system right now?
    Ms. Allvin. Thank you, Senator. To be clear, I first heard 
about the proposal this morning, so I haven't read the details 
of it and look forward to doing that. But that said I think as 
Senator Burr referred earlier to the huge bipartisan history in 
early childhood education. And I know, I think we were involved 
at NAEYC in what happened with CCDBG under Senator Murray's 
leadership, with Senator Alexander a few years ago. So there 
both has never been a partisan hearing, and there has never 
been enough in CCDBG to fix this system.
    Both those things are true. And I to--the proposal on the 
table right now, and what we have seen, is the only solution 
that I have seen that again actually takes this system as a 
whole and addresses all of the complexity, and where we point 
to market failures, and where we point to things were, oh, it 
didn't work quite right.
    Not enough kids had better reading scores, whatever it is, 
and you see the headlines, in every one of those you can also 
say, and there was never enough funding invested to make the 
science of early learning and the economics of early learning 
match what we are investing in the system. Until we can say 
that it is not even fair actually to question the outcomes of 
our solutions because we have dealt with scarcity for decades.
    Senator Smith. I think that is exactly right. And I am--I 
have always been a strong supporter of CCDBG. I think that what 
you are pointing to, though, is that we have sort of a systemic 
failure in the way that the whole system works. And when we try 
to fix little pieces of it, we end up not really getting at the 
root causes of the problems that we face, right?
    Ms. Allvin. Right. Absolutely.
    Senator Smith. Right. I just have a couple of seconds left, 
but I want to come to Ms. Ballivian because in your testimony, 
you talked about the challenges of how families make just 
enough money to not qualify for support, and that creates this 
massive logistics challenge for the providers as well as the 
families.
    Of course, families incomes don't stay steady throughout 
the course of a year even, so there is this cliff effect. Could 
you just talk a little bit more about that one example of how 
that sort of logistics challenge becomes such a barrier for 
families?
    Ms. Ballivian. Yes. I am flooded with examples right now. 
But the one that really hits home is a about a couple of 
parents that had two children enrolled in our program.
    The mother worked as a teacher in the school system and the 
father was a firefighter. They had two children and one of them 
had a special needs. They just couldn't keep up with the 
tuition, and we were able to secure some funding through the 
additional support that we get from the churches, and they were 
able to keep the children with us for about 6 months, but 
ultimately they had to remove their children.
    I had teachers come in with tears in their eyes because 
they knew how important that place was for these children. And 
the day that I had to say goodbye to those children, I cannot 
tell you how upset I was because it is not their fault. They 
have the same rights that any other children have to access the 
services we provide, and we must ensure that all children in 
America have the opportunity to be loved, to be protected, to 
be safe, and that all parents have the opportunity to provide 
for their children in ways that allow them to succeed.
    It is just too hard. It is just--I was recently engaged 
with an organization, Devotion to Children it is called, and 
they are helping us off set some scholarships. I had--just a 
$1,000 can go right a long road. Some of my families are--to be 
eligible for subsidy, they need to be working, of course, but 
what happens when somebody gets pregnant and has to go on 
maternity leave?
    I was just thrilled when our State in Virginia provided for 
some flexibility and ensured that if you become eligible for 
childcare, you will remain eligible for the entire year of 
eligibility. That makes a huge impact in the lives of these 
children and their families too.
    Senator Smith. Thank you so much. I am so sorry for going 
so over, Madam Chair. Thank you so much. That was wonderful.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Rosen.
    Senator Rosen. Thank you, Madam Chair, Ranking Member Burr. 
This hearing is so important, and I just want to thank all of 
you for your passion, your care, your concern, your worry, your 
love for our children, our children are our future. They are. 
They will be us one day and we have to prepare them for that.
    I just so appreciate what you do. And I want to talk a 
little bit about SBA loans for nonprofit childcare businesses 
because I think it is one way to lower costs for parents and 
boost access to affordable, high quality childcare programs. We 
can make more childcare providers eligible for the full scope 
of small business support. Currently, only for-profit childcare 
providers have access to SBA and all the programs that they 
have.
    Nonprofit providers only have access only to the SBA's 
micro loan program, which is capped at $50,000. So this blocks 
access to capital for nonprofit childcare to establish new 
facilities, to expand existing ones. Nonprofit childcare can be 
your local church or synagogue, boys and girls club. Something 
in your community. There are childcare deserts all over this 
country.
    To address this problem, I have introduced a Small Business 
Childcare Investment Act. It is bipartisan legislation that 
would allow not qualified, nonprofits small business childcare 
just to have the same access to the SBA that for-profit 
companies have.
    Ms. Ballivian, as the Executive Director of a nonprofit 
childcare center, you just talked a little bit about the 
financial challenges, but if we were to open your business up 
or other businesses that of, small businesses, to be able to 
get the same resources that others do through the SBA, how 
would that change things for you?
    Ms. Ballivian. I think childcare needs to be sustainable 
over time. I think that--I was just recently invited to expand 
our program, and as it is, childcare does not provide for 
profit gains. We are really depending on a lot of support. Our 
guys particularly like it because we are getting a lot of 
additional support from local Government. We don't have to pay 
for rent, we don't have to pay for maintenance of the building, 
and that has allowed us to really provide the level of quality 
that we want children to access.
    I think that having access to finance supports like an SBA 
loan could be meaningful in some cases, but that would not be 
effective unless there is a sustained amount of funding 
investment coming to our field. When you work in a setting like 
the one I work, you need to find a way to meet the demands of 
quality.
    We need to have low ratios. We need to have environments 
that are effective for young children. We need to have access 
to materials, equipment. With the pandemic, believe it or not, 
all the furniture has been ruined with the amount of strain 
that we were doing with bleach, and all our puzzles and books 
have been ruined.
    We just had to redo all of that. Having that ARPA funds 
come to the rescue has been incredibly important to us. So 
thank you for your initiative, and I am sure that programs will 
be able to access that.
    Senator Rosen. Thank you. I want to move on to Ms. Allvin 
and Ms. Kashen because I want you both to speak about the 
current availability for affordable childcare for parents who 
work nontraditional hours, like our firefighters, like our 
nurses. I am from the State of Nevada. What, our casino 
industry, our hotel industry, 24/7, 365.
    Their shifts are going all the time, and so they have to be 
able to take care of their families as well. So Ms. Allvin and 
Ms. Kashen, what are--well, I guess I have to take it probably 
off the record, but really, what recommendations do you have 
for Congress to help us address this? I see my time--maybe Ms. 
Allvin, you can just address it quickly.
    Ms. Allvin. Sure, absolutely. Thank you, Senator. And I 
will quickly say our Idaho affiliate and our Nevada affiliate 
support your bill, your bipartisan bill. So thank you very much 
for that. You are right. We have never even come close to 
solving the issue of nontraditional hours. And when you think 
about the service industry, restaurants, casinos, I know for 
tribes, it is tricky.
    What we need, much like rural communities, it is very 
similar. The solutions are right. It has to be affordable for 
families, which also creates an issue where there is supply 
for--there is got to be enough supply because families can't 
find it. They are using unlicensed and unregulated care.
    I also think it is a moment where employers will partner--
if they see the Federal Government taking the lead on this, it 
is an opportunity to partner to create solutions that we 
haven't seen before. But everyone is fearful with the lack of 
resources that are available in the system to take the first 
step. That is why this step is such an important step.
    Senator Rosen. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Hickenlooper.
    Senator Hickenlooper. Great. Thank you each for taking the 
time out and talking about this important issue. I went right 
from being a small businessperson into being the Mayor of 
Denver. And one of the first things, I think perhaps the first 
thing I did was convened three different commissions. One was a 
commission, one was a task force, one was a committee. Each one 
was bipartisan, and each one had private sector, public sector 
people to look at quality early childhood education.
    We did this for 30 months. Little did I suspect that it 
would be so drawn out and that there was so much activity and 
research in it. And in the end, we went to the ballot as a city 
with a sales tax. We got--if you remember the Corse family in 
those days, Pete Corse was still the CEO of Corse Brewing 
Company, one of those conservative families politically in the 
country, and he was on that list. He served on one of those 
commissions. He came to every meeting, and he supported that 
tax increase.
    I think we are past the point of recognizing that we even 
need to discuss. This was in 2004 where we did all this work 
and that went to the ballot in 2005. So I think we need to look 
at what are the realities and that is what you guys are doing a 
great job of talking about today. We have got 80 percent of our 
childcare centers in Colorado are facing staffing shortages. 
Those are the ones inside the city of Denver, but they are all 
across the state. I think we have to have a workforce that can 
fully support expansion.
    I thought I would start with you, Ms. Allvin. How do we 
best recruit childcare educators, the workforce, within the 
system that is right now? And then, how would might we change 
that? And how do we work with high schools and post-secondary 
schools to encourage early educator pathways? What does that 
look like? And then how do--I mean in the end, as you guys have 
said and are aware, there is competition for workforce. And so 
how do we make sure that those early educators aren't lured 
away?
    Ms. Allvin. Thank you, Senator. And to be clear and agree 
with the great Senator from the great State of Alaska, we 
believe firmly that quality can exist in every setting. But to 
do that, it means that the early childhood educator in that 
setting is well-prepared.
    The 2015 National Academies report said that there is a 
discrete set of knowledge, skills, and competencies to 
capitalize on the science of early learning, the through line 
between language and math, between exploring environments and 
having social, emotional impact. And so having a well-qualified 
workforce is an imperative.
    That is at the credential level, that is at the associate's 
degree level, the bachelor's, master's degree level, and Ph.D. 
And we are kind of doing a lot of hand-wringing right now about 
why we can't get a workforce, why we are having these huge 
shortages. We shouldn't be hand wringing. Our history is super 
clear, when you have somebody with a degree in early childhood 
education making $11 or $12 an hour and they can go to target 
and make $24 an hour, I don't think that story is complicated.
    We recently, I interviewed 30 system leaders in higher 
education in the spring, and we produced a report on higher 
education. Higher education is ready to invest. If they get the 
signal that we are going to invest as a country, they too want 
to invest in ensuring that our workforce is fully prepared. But 
I struggle to see, and you can see it in this pandemic, every 
other industry has responded and look at nursing, right.
    Nursing you don't reduce the barriers to entry. You don't 
make it easier. You don't pay people less. You don't give a 
bonus one time when we have a nursing crisis. You make sure you 
have highly qualified skilled RNs and LPNs and nurse CNAs. You 
pay them what it costs, what the market bears.
    We are not doing that in early childhood education. So the 
key to all of this is a funding system where employers can pay 
their early childhood educators professional salaries, health 
insurance, and retirement benefits. I can almost guarantee you 
we won't have a workforce crisis if we do that.
    Senator Hickenlooper. Yes. I sure hear--and I am just about 
out of time, so just going to work my way down. I will get 
written questions to each, everybody. Ms. Kashen, just quickly, 
what are some common sense bipartisan solutions we can work on 
to lessen the strain of childcare on working families? Because 
I think that is again--I mean, this is so confounding because 
we are not paying anybody enough money, and yet we are still 
costing too much for the parents of children.
    Ms. Kashen. It is a great question. Thank you, Senator. So 
basically invest Federal dollars so that we have the ability to 
lower costs for families. Make sure no family pays more than 7 
percent of their income. And invest to build the supply of 
childcare in a way that raises the compensation of the early 
educators. I think that is very, very important.
    I just want to note one more quick thing is that when we 
talk about bipartisan solutions, the Senator from Alaska talked 
about the idea of a one size fits all, but actually what this 
bill does, what this proposal does is create state flexibility. 
That is something I think that really is a bipartisan approach 
where stakeholders get to have a say in what things look like 
and so they could actually communicate about the need to get 
the fire extinguishers and there is money in the bill to help 
pay for that too.
    I actually think that this is a very flexible bill that has 
a lot of bipartisan answers in it.
    Senator Hickenlooper. Great. Thank you to each. I will 
yield back to the Chair.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Burr.
    Senator Burr. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate our 
witnesses today. Ms. Kashen, I think if Senator Kennedy were 
here, he would probably co-sponsor my bill on community block 
grants. And somebody mentioned earlier they didn't know where 
the $13,000 increase came from. That came from the People's 
Policy Project, $13,082 increase per child. And they went on to 
say, and I quote, ``wage and quality mandates mean unsubsidized 
parents will take a beating.''
    The DC report, where they have instituted something similar 
to Build Back Better in DC, they had to put out a report. Here 
I quote them, ``non-subsidy providers would need to increase 
prices charged to parents. Those serving families who could not 
afford to pay higher cost might be forced to close. Any of 
those outcomes could reduce affordability and access to 
childcare in the District of Columbia.''
    I urge my colleagues, don't make this mistake. I know there 
is great pressure to do Build Back Better. But this is not the 
right bill. Engage in a bipartisan way. Let's put together a 
childcare bill that we can be proud of. That we can look at and 
that doesn't build a Federal top-down childcare system that 
destroys what we have tried to do at the state levels across 
this country.
    There is one thing that unbelievably I am confident of, is 
that about 30 states will opt out of this. I am not sure that 
we are doing justice to the kids in those states saying, well, 
we will just work around the decisions the states make.
    No, we need to be partners with the states. This is not a 
partnership. I thank the Chair.
    The Chair. Thank you, Senator Burr. I want to be clear the 
Democratic proposal would make childcare more affordable, not 
more expensive, for millions of families. And in fact, a family 
making $130,000 annually will save $13,000 a year on childcare. 
This proposal would actually provide childcare programs with 
more funding through subsidies and grants, which could be used 
to raise wages and does not create unfunded requirements that 
would be passed on to other families.
    On the contrary, this proposal puts money back into the 
pockets of 9 in 10 working families and would be 
transformational for families and for providers. So finally, 
just I want to be very clear that what Democrats want to 
accomplish on childcare is lowering costs for families, giving 
parents more and better options for providers, and raising 
childcare workers' wages to stabilize this important part of 
our economy.
    The Democratic proposal takes in the parts of CCDBG that 
work and builds on it to fix the broken system. We leave behind 
what doesn't work, because that is what legislating is. I think 
we should all be able to agree, the status quo on childcare is 
not meeting the needs of our constituents, and it is on us to 
innovate and deliver better. The bottom line is that right now, 
states get a set amount of money each year, and they are forced 
to calculate the number of families they can serve based on how 
much money they have.
    That means some families are left out. As we have talked 
about today, only 1 in 10--1 in 9 eligible young children 
receive assistance, let alone all the families who are not 
eligible. That is unacceptable today. I hope that Republicans 
can finally recognize that because only serving 15 percent of 
eligible kids today does not cut it. That is exactly why our 
proposal serves more working families because we recognize more 
people need help affording childcare.
    We will finally raise wages for early educators so that we 
can retain talented and dedicated teachers and expand options 
for families by helping new providers open their doors and add 
more slots. And let's not gloss over the fact that 90 percent 
of the cost will be covered by the Federal Government, all 
fully paid for by making the wealthiest pay their fair share. I 
am also incredibly glad all of our witnesses today have spoken 
about the American Rescue Plan. That is a bill not a single one 
of our Republican colleagues voted for it.
    States have done amazing things with that money and have 
prevented many of our childcare providers from shutting their 
doors, as some of you stated. But that was a short term 
solution. And very soon we are going to be back to the status 
quo, which again does not work for working parents or kids, all 
because right now, the only Federal investment in childcare 
leaves the vast majority of working parents and kids out on 
their own.
    This hearing, I think, has really made crystal clear, 
change is needed. It needs to happen now. Children and families 
and providers need Congress to act and pretty fast. With that, 
I just want to say I want to thank all of our colleagues who 
participated today. I want to thank all of our witnesses for an 
excellent discussion.
    Ms. Allvin, Ms. Kashen, Ms. Ballivian, and Ms. Reynolds, 
thank you all for participating and for a thoughtful 
discussion.
    For any Senators who wish to ask additional questions, 
questions for the record will be due in 10 business days, April 
5th at 5 p.m. With that, the Committee stands adjourned.

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    [Whereupon, at 12:08 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

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