[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 184 (Wednesday, October 20, 2021)]
[House]
[Page H5680]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1015
                      CHILD CARE CRISIS IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Courtney) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to spend a few minutes to 
talk about an October 15 visit to Connecticut by President Biden where 
he actually put the eyes of the country for a couple of hours on a 
critical issue that his Build Back Better agenda is focused on fixing, 
which is, namely, the crisis in child daycare all across the country.
  On Friday, my colleagues and I, as well as President Biden, visited 
the Capitol Child Development Center, where the executive director, 
Barbara Jo Warner, laid out very clearly the dilemma that she and her 
colleagues who are in this very struggling sector are faced with today.
  Before COVID, her center had 70 slots for children completely full, 
with a waiting list. Today, they have 20 children in the same daycare 
center.
  Is it because there is no demand? No, that is not the case. There 
still is a waiting list of families who are trying to get their kids 
into daycare.
  Her problem is that the staffing that she had prior to COVID has 
severely diminished, and her ability to attract people back into her 
program is limited by the fact that she is only able to offer $13 an 
hour as a starting wage for people in a very important job for our 
country as well as families of the children that they take care of.
  So we are in a situation where they are in a place where McDonald's 
pays more, at $15 an hour, than a daycare center, at $13 an hour.
  It is a problem which is, I think, one of the reasons why the jobs 
recovery has stalled, particularly for families and women heads-of-
household who, again, don't have centers with slots available because 
of the staffing problem that Ms. Warner described to the President and 
to the world on Friday.
  The Build Back Better legislation, he discussed it, finally, in a 
different kind of context, in terms of the horse race down here and who 
is up, who is down, which faction is negotiating what. He focused on 
the content of the Build Back Better legislation, which is addressed to 
provide a huge infusion of support for our daycare sector.
  What that provision will do is cap the amount of out-of-pocket for 
families who are using child daycare at 7 percent of income. Today, 
low- and middle-income families spend between 14 and 35 percent of 
their income on daycare. If we get this through, we are immediately 
going to provide savings for families with their kids in daycare.
  In Connecticut, looking at a family making $87,000 a year, that 
basically would result in weekly savings of $175 a week, which is 
definitely a huge boost in terms of working families and middle-class 
families, which this bill would provide.
  Again, I want to emphasize, this is not a Connecticut problem. This 
is happening all across the country, and the median or the average 
salary for daycare centers across the country is actually $12 an hour, 
a little lower than what the President heard about on Friday.
  If we are serious about a real job recovery and giving families the 
opportunity to really go back to work, why don't we listen to the U.S. 
Chamber of Commerce, the largest business organization in the country, 
which recognized during COVID that support for child daycare is 
essential, in terms of trying to get working-age families back into the 
workforce.
  Again, the openings are there. I could walk through employers in the 
State of Connecticut. Electric Boat in my district has about 500 job 
openings right now. They want to get those Gen Z'ers and millennials 
trained up and ready to go. But if they don't have a place for their 
children to be cared for safely and adequately, then we are just 
basically in a cul-de-sac where this economy is going to be held back.
  The Build Back Better agenda is not soft infrastructure. It is right 
at the heart of whether or not we are going to, as a country, fully 
recover and grow in the wake of this pandemic.
  It is something that hopefully every Member, when the time comes for 
this package, when that daycare provision is included in there, will 
think about long and hard because this is not a Connecticut-only issue. 
This affects every State, red and blue; every district, red and blue; 
every employer, in red and blue areas of the country. If anyone can't 
support that, then they are not serious about really helping this 
country recover from the pandemic.
  Again, I thank the President for coming out and really focusing like 
a laser on this issue. I thank Executive Director Barbara Jo Warner for 
her clear message to the country.

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