[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 2 (Wednesday, January 28, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E41-E42]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               CHILD CARE

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. LEE H. HAMILTON

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, January 28, 1998

  Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, I would like to insert my Washington 
Report for Wednesday, December 3, 1997, into the Congressional Record.

                         Child Care Challenges

       Finding high-quality, affordable child care is a common 
     challenge for working parents, with profound consequences for 
     the emotional and cognitive development of children, the 
     workplace, and welfare reform. To choose where your children 
     will be for long hours is to choose the people and the 
     environment that will help shape them.
       I find Hoosiers ambivalent about child care. Many accept 
     that working mothers are a reality and want greater 
     investments in improving the quality of child care. Others 
     believe mothers should stay at home with their small 
     children, or at least not be encouraged by government 
     subsidies to leave their children in the care of others.
       Child care has become an increasingly urgent issue for a 
     number of reasons. First, 62% of women with young children 
     work outside the home. Today, an estimated 13 million 
     children under the age of 6 spend some or all of their day in 
     child care. The effort to push welfare recipients into the 
     workforce also adds to the demand for child care, since most 
     of them are single women with young children. Second, recent 
     research has indicated that the stimulation and attention 
     children receive from infancy until the age of 3 has a 
     critical impact on their ability to learn and grow throughout 
     the rest of their lives. Third, child care is expensive: on 
     average, $3,800 per year for each pre-school age child. 
     Employers, meanwhile, lose an estimated $3 billion each year 
     due to child-care related absences by workers. For low-income 
     working parents, child care is a perpetual emergency.


                           Federal assistance

       The federal government has a few programs aimed at making 
     child care better and more affordable: child care subsidies 
     for low-income families and those receiving welfare benefits; 
     a modest income tax credit for a portion of child care 
     expenses; a tax exclusion for employer-provided child care 
     benefits; low-cost, nutritious meals and snacks for poor 
     children in child care; and Head Start, a part-day pre-school 
     program for disadvantaged youngsters. These programs will 
     cost the federal government about $12 billion in 1997.


                               Key issues

       Recently, President and Mrs. Clinton hosted a conference at 
     the White House which focused on the three key child care 
     issues:
     Availability
       The availability of care varies widely. Care is sometimes 
     scarce for babies because of the lower child-to-adult ratio 
     they require. Options are also limited for school age 
     children; in Indiana, only 37% of public schools offer 
     extended day programs.
     Affordability
       The expense of child care can place great strains on the 
     family budget. The 1996 welfare reform law increased federal 
     child care funding by $4 billion over six years, yet only one 
     in ten eligible families receives subsidies. Many communities 
     have hundreds of parents on waiting lists for assistance. 
     Low-income working parents are competing with welfare 
     recipients moving into the workforce for limited child care 
     funds. Some large employers have stepped up efforts to help 
     employees meet their child care needs by building on-site 
     child care centers, providing referrals, or giving employees 
     pre-tax cash assistance, but only 4% of American workers are 
     eligible.
     Quality
       Although there are many excellent child care facilities, 
     too much of the child care in this country is unsafe at 
     worst, mediocre at best. States are primarily responsible for 
     regulating the health and safety of child care settings, and 
     requirements vary widely. A 1995 study indicated that one in 
     eight child care centers provided care that could actually 
     jeopardize children's safety and development.
       But it's not enough just to keep children safe. Because of 
     the importance of early childhood experiences on later 
     learning, child care needs to provide age-appropriate 
     activities, a low child-to-adult ratio, and lots of attention 
     from stable, nurturing adults who understand child 
     development. Yet this is lacking in up to 6 out of every 7 
     child care centers by one estimate. One problem is that 
     turnover among child care workers is about 50% annually, 
     primarily due to low wages. The average salary for a worker 
     in a child care center is just over $12,000 per year--
     considerably less than the average bartender earns. With such 
     low wages it is difficult to attract highly skilled and 
     experienced individuals. Moreover, most states, including 
     Indiana, do not require child care workers to have any 
     training prior to beginning their jobs. But increasing wages 
     for child care workers will drive up costs, making child care 
     even less affordable.


                               Solutions

       The question for government is what it can do to make the 
     child care situation better. It

[[Page E42]]

     is easy to see how more money might help, but in this era of 
     budget constraints, no large infusion of cash is going to 
     come from Washington. In some respects, that's appropriate. 
     Different communities have different needs, and my sense is 
     that locally created solutions forged by partnerships among 
     businesses, schools, churches, and government are probably 
     going to be most successful. Nonetheless, we do have a 
     responsibility as a nation to see that children are given the 
     opportunity to prosper. Finding a way to pay child care 
     workers a living wage and assure that they are professionally 
     trained and supervised is crucial. Some suggest that greater 
     government regulation of child care providers would improve 
     care, but others worry that this would drive up costs and 
     worsen the affordability problem.
       President Clinton has proposed spending $300 million to 
     train 50,000 day care providers who promise to stay in the 
     field at least one year. He also pledged to devote more 
     Americorps volunteers to after-school programs. Others have 
     proposed raising the Department Care Tax Credit, which has 
     not been increased since 1981, and making the credit 
     refundable for low-income families. Still others believe that 
     more child care is a bad approach and favor providing 
     incentives for parents to stay at home with children or 
     utilize flexible work arrangements.
       We need to place a higher priority on meeting the 
     educational and emotional needs of young children. There are 
     many difficult questions surrounding the availability, 
     affordability, and quality of child care in this country, and 
     plenty of room for argument on how best to achieve 
     satisfactory arrangements. But all of us have a stake in 
     giving every child a decent start. My strong sense is that 
     not nearly enough child care is of the quality that all 
     children deserve. I have the feeling that finding a way to 
     improve child care is one of the next big challenges ahead.

     

                          ____________________