[Senate Hearing 117-391]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 117-391
CHILD CARE AND PRESCHOOL:
CUTTING COSTS FOR WORKING FAMILIES
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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
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
48-902 PDF WASHINGTON : 2023
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COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS
PATTY MURRAY, Washington, Chair
BERNIE SANDERS (I), Vermont RICHARD BURR, North Carolina,
ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania Ranking Member
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin RAND PAUL, M.D., Kentucky
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
TIM KAINE, Virginia BILL CASSIDY, M.D., Louisiana
MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
TINA SMITH, Minnesota MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada ROGER MARSHALL, M.D., Kansas
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
JOHN HICKENLOOPER, Colorado MITT ROMNEY, Utah
TOMMY TUBERVILLE, Alabama
JERRY MORAN, Kansas
Evan T. Schatz, Staff Director
David P. Cleary, Republican Staff Director
John Righter, Deputy Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS
TUESDAY, 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
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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
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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.
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
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[Whereupon, at 12:08 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
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