[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 196 (Wednesday, November 29, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5662-S5668]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Childcare
Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, as you well know, because we have
talked about it, our childcare system is simply broken. It is not
working for families across our country, and we face a crisis now that
continues to grow worse.
I have said that many times--many times--and I will say it again and
again and again until we fix this broken system for good. And I am not
the only one here in Congress who feels that way. Earlier this month,
48 of my Senate colleagues sent a letter to me and Vice Chair Collins,
Leader Schumer, and Leader McConnell urging us to include childcare
funding in any emergency supplemental.
Today, many of them are joining me here on the Senate floor to lift
up the
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concerns that we are hearing from parents and making the case for
providing robust childcare funding without delay.
We cannot pretend that childcare is any less urgent than the other
challenges that we face. For every parent, childcare is a do-it-now
problem, not a do-it-later problem. We need to treat it the same way
here: urgent and essential.
Parents can't wait. They have to go to work tomorrow. They need
accessible options now. Childcare workers cannot wait. They have to pay
rent this month. They have to put food on their table tonight. They
need a salary that lets them take care of their own families and that
lets them keep doing what they love, instead of taking higher pay in
retail or food services to keep their families afloat.
Providers can't wait. Their margins are already razor thin. If they
don't get the support they need to cover operating costs until after
they have raised prices and cut off families, after workers have
already left, or after they are forced to close their doors, well, it
is too late.
The writing on the wall is right now in big, bold letters. The
childcare crisis is only going to get worse unless we take action and
soon.
Childcare providers across the country are hanging on by a thread,
especially now that our stabilization funding has expired, cutting off
the lifeline that helped 220,000 providers stay open and helped provide
childcare to nearly 10 million kids, while raising wages for childcare
workers and lowering prices for working families.
If childcare centers don't get the support they need to make ends
meet, the options for children and families is not pretty. We are
talking about a very real possibility that childcare centers have to
reduce the pay for their staff, lay off staff, serve fewer kids and
families, raise their prices, or, in many cases, just simply shut their
door.
This is a huge problem for working parents who can scarcely find
childcare as it is. And even if they can find openings, that doesn't
mean they can afford them. In fact, the already high cost of childcare
is only getting worse. The latest data shows that in September,
childcare prices jumped by the largest percent in a year. That means
parents--especially moms--are feeling the crunch, and far too many are
going to be forced to leave their job or unable to return to the
workforce because it just doesn't square with their family finances.
Back in my home State, I have heard so many stories of families who
are struggling with this. I just read a story about two parents, Lara
and Rob. Rob had to leave his company to get a more flexible schedule
because childcare was too expensive. So he and Lara have to trade off
shifts and work fewer hours to make sure someone is watching the kids.
And they are far from the only ones struggling with this.
The KUOW article featuring their story this week also mentioned a
woman named Monica--she is a therapist and former childcare worker who
trades off working and watching the kids with her husband who is a
police officer--and Skye, who is also trading off shifts with her
husband since their childcare provider closed.
As she put it, ``I definitely can't pay for soccer and my mortgage
and some child care. I have to pick. So we've chosen soccer and
mortgage and putting together this bizarre schedule where my husband is
exhausted all the time and we barely see each other.''
That is what parents are going through across Washington State and
across our entire country. It is hurting everyone. You can draw a
straight line from the expiration of the childcare stabilization funds
at the end of September to the painful closure of childcare providers,
to the subsequent scramble now by parents to find new and likely more
expensive childcare for their kids, that is squeezing parents out of
hours on the job, if not out of the workforce entirely, right to the
employers who are left without the workers they need because you better
believe it is going to have an impact on their bottom line.
Failing to shore up our childcare industry that holds up nearly every
sector of our economy in the midst of a workforce shortage that is
hitting small businesses and big firms alike will cost us a lot more
than the investment in childcare we are asking for. We are going to
lose jobs; we are going to lose workers; and our economy is going to
continue to lose billions more in lost wages and revenue and growth.
We are talking a serious meltdown that costs our economy big if we
fail to value our families and invest in the people parents need to
watch over their kids.
There is no reason for this, not if we take action and take it soon.
As the Presiding Officer well knows, we cannot ignore childcare. This
is hugely important for our national economy. It is one of the biggest
line items on family budgets in many States, including my home State of
Washington. Childcare now costs more than college tuition. We have to
continue to stabilize the childcare system instead of standing by and
letting things get worse and worse and worse.
Families get this, all of my colleagues on the floor with me today
get this, and thankfully President Biden does as well. The President
sent Congress a request for supplemental funding for urgent domestic
priorities, and childcare was at the top of that list.
Now I am calling on all of our colleagues on both sides of this aisle
to work with us to pass a package that funds critical needs at home,
especially childcare.
I think everyone understands there is a lot happening in the world
today. That is why we absolutely need to pass supplemental funding to
meet our urgent national security challenges and soon, but as we
continue to work to do that, we also have to tackle the problems
families face here at home, and that means addressing the growing
childcare crisis.
We are the United States of America. We can stand with our allies
around the world and tackle the challenges we face with our families
here at home. If we are serious about the strength of this Nation, our
communities, and our families, we have got to respond to the domestic
challenges with the same resolve as we do with the national security
challenges.
I am going to continue to work hard with everyone to do that, and I
appreciate everybody's support and all of my colleagues who are here
today to speak out on this.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. SMITH. Madam President, I rise with my colleagues today to say
that childcare is a necessity for working families, and it is in all of
our interests to make sure that families have a safe, affordable, high-
quality place for their little ones. And that is why we need to step up
and make sure that we provide support for childcare as we contemplate
next steps for an emergency supplemental budget.
So for decades, Minnesotans have struggled to find childcare they can
afford. Even before the pandemic, families told me that it cost them as
much to pay for a year of daycare as to send their child to the
University of Minnesota for a year.
I mean, of course, these young families haven't had years to save to
pay for that childcare. So they can't afford over $12,000 a year, and
that is even if they can find a good, safe place for their infants and
toddlers.
Then, of course, when the pandemic hit, family care providers came
into my office to tell me that their businesses were about to collapse.
And then what happened? Congress took crucial action. We came together
to pass emergency relief so that providers could pay their bills and
keep their doors open, and families had a place for their children.
These relief programs were absolutely necessary to help childcare
providers keep their doors open and to operate during those
unprecedented times.
So here is the good news. Our efforts were a huge success. Minnesota
providers, from the smallest of small businesses operating out of their
homes to larger childcare centers, all tell me that they would not have
survived without this help, and that is true not just in Minnesota but
all over the country.
Just in Minnesota, the emergency childcare stabilization grants kept
over 8,000 childcare providers going. It kept them going. They reached
over 200,000 kids just in Minnesota, but also in every State. From
Alaska to Alabama, every State saw really tremendous benefits. In
fact--this is interesting--96 percent of childcare providers that got
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help from these stabilization grants say that it helped them to stay
open and operating.
So, colleagues, here is our challenge. On September 30, these
programs expired, but the deep challenges that families and childcare
providers face are still there. So we are back in the soup because,
without help to these providers, they are back at risk themselves, and
they face really terrible choices, as Senator Murray just described. Do
they try to cut the pay for these workers, who are some of the lowest
paid, underpaid workers--primarily women, primarily women of color--
anyplace in the country. So that is one option--pay cuts for those
workers who are struggling already themselves. Or do they try to
increase prices, which we know will drive some families away because
they literally cannot afford what it costs? Or, as Senator Murray says,
do they just fold up? Do they just go out of business? Do they give up?
And if that happens, we know what we will see. We will see more women
leaving the workforce at a time when many Minnesota businesses are
telling me that they are struggling to find the talent that they need
to grow their businesses.
So, colleagues, we took decisive action to bolster our Nation's
caregiving infrastructure, and we got great results. And, now, we
cannot afford to lose the progress that we made.
This is an issue that I think we all know people are paying attention
to. In Minnesota and all over the country, they are noticing this.
Childcare is one of the top issues that I hear about from people when I
am home. I hear it from families in rural Minnesota who are driving 50
miles to take their kids to childcare. I hear it from families who are
paying more than a third of their incomes to cover the costs of care
for two children, and I hear it from employers and economic development
professionals who want to hire and retain great talent, but they know
that they can't do that unless there is a childcare center in their
community that people can rely on.
So this is about our kids, but it is also about our economy. A recent
study found that our broken childcare system cost the economy $122
billion a year in lost earnings, productivity, and revenue. That is
every year--$122 billion.
So if you think about the return on investment for providing the
grants to stabilize these childcare centers so that they are there for
our families, it is so clear what the right thing to do is.
We can fix this. We know what to do because we did it once and it
worked, and now we just need to do it again.
Now, I think that everyone in this room knows that we need a long-
term solution to our childcare crisis, and many of us are working on
that. But, in the meantime, right now, families don't have time to
wait. We know what to do. We know how to help parents. We know how to
keep childcare providers open.
And so I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle: Let's take
what we know worked, and let's do it again. Join us in providing
urgently needed support for childcare. Join us for the good of our
families, for the good of our babies and toddlers, and for childcare
providers and for our whole country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I am here to join my colleagues
because, across the country, working families are facing an impossible
choice that is created by the lack of access to childcare.
Even before the COVID pandemic, families in my home State of New
Hampshire and elsewhere have struggled to access affordable childcare,
and they were often faced with shortages of available childcare slots.
The pandemic exacerbated these challenges and caused childcare centers
across the Granite State to close. That forced countless families to
scramble for alternatives.
The closure of a childcare provider can result in higher costs for
families, and in New England, we already pay some of the highest costs
for childcare in the country. They can also require parents to leave
the workforce altogether.
Since 2019, New Hampshire has lost nearly 1,500 childcare slots, as
dozens of childcare centers have closed their doors. I have visited
some of those centers from across my State--from Littleton, in the
northern part of New Hampshire, to Rochester, down on the Maine border,
to Manchester, our largest city, and over in the west to Keene. I have
seen those closed classrooms and strained facilities in every corner of
the Granite State.
In October of 2020, New Hampshire had only half of the licensed
capacity necessary to serve children under the age of 6 who needed
care--only half of the required slots for care. And in just one of our
counties, Coos County, which is the northernmost county of the State
and borders Canada, three childcare centers have closed since January
of this year.
Like all of my colleagues on the floor, we worked to deliver more
than $50 billion in Federal funding for childcare during the pandemic.
This is funding that was critical for allowing providers to keep their
doors open, to improve childcare affordability and expand access, to
increase wages for childcare workers, and to build a supply of
childcare in States like New Hampshire. Now, with that relief funding
running out, childcare providers are again facing an existential
crisis.
Congress intentionally designed childcare relief during the pandemic
to accomplish two goals: first, to provide direct relief to providers
to stabilize the sector; and, second, to provide States with the
resources to make long-term investments to try and address childcare
availability.
Now, I am disappointed to say that in my State of New Hampshire, they
delayed the distribution of that long-term funding stream, which made
the last 2 years unnecessarily burdensome for families and childcare
providers across New Hampshire. In fact, I am hearing from providers
who are in desperate need of additional support to avoid closing
classrooms.
So I am really pleased that the President included $16 billion for
support for childcare in his domestic supplemental appropriations
request to Congress, and we need to act as soon as possible to provide
this critical funding.
We have got to act to stabilize not just the childcare industry that
our families and workforce and communities rely on, but this is vital
for our economy as a whole. Right now, the repercussions of the
childcare crisis are being felt across every sector of our economy. I
have heard from every industry in New Hampshire--manufacturing,
healthcare, nonprofits, tourism--that the childcare crisis has
hamstrung their ability to continue to grow their operations.
Over the summer, I traveled up to Coos County, that northernmost
county of New Hampshire. I heard from parents and from one family, and
a man named Michael, whose son's childcare center has recently closed.
At the time of the closure, the nearest center with any open slots for
him and his wife to be able to place their son was more than an hour
away. That left Michael and his wife, like many families across the
State, struggling to do their best to keep their jobs without local,
reliable childcare. And where they live, their community can't afford
for Michael or his wife, who is a critical healthcare worker, to leave
the workforce.
New Hampshire's families should not have to choose between their
children and their jobs, and New Hampshire's businesses should not have
to face additional struggles to find qualified workers.
Families across America are relying on us--all of us here in
Congress--to help childcare providers stay open and to provide
affordable care options. This Federal funding would improve their lives
while boosting our economy by helping parents keep their jobs or return
to work.
I appreciate all of those who are here on the floor today, and
everyone who is supporting additional funding, for speaking out to make
sure that we try and do something as soon as possible to help the
families who are in need.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I am delighted to join my colleagues
today from the Finance Committee. Our chairman is here. We did, I
think, remarkable work to expand the
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child tax credit during the COVID epidemic, and it made a truly
remarkable difference in children's lives--nearly 50 percent reduction
in child poverty. Why would you not want more of that? Yet we let it
expire in 2021, and, sure enough, child poverty climbed back up again.
There was a lot of fearmongering, when we did it, that this was going
to discourage people from working, that they would sit at home and sop
up the tax credit. But the fact of the matter is, if you can't get
childcare, you can't get to work. And if you can't get reliable,
quality childcare, you can't move up into the kind of job where you
don't have to worry about being called away because your childcare just
fell apart.
So in Rhode Island at least, we saw families do more work as a result
of this, and 174,000 Rhode Island children benefited. Families got $264
million--low-income families--to pay for childcare, get to work, or
step up to a better job.
At the same time, we also provided additional funding for childcare
providers in that same American rescue plan, and that was another win.
And you put the two together, and it really lifted families.
Right now, without Congressional action, 3 million children are
projected to lose access to childcare, and 70,000 childcare programs
could close.
Bring that to Rhode Island, and it is 21,000 kids in my State who
could lose access to childcare, 680 childcare workers could lose their
jobs, and 419 different childcare providers could close.
We simply cannot let that happen. It is wrong. It is dumb. It is
penny-wise and pound-foolish.
We need to do three simple things: Make childcare a priority,
encourage work and earning, and reduce child poverty. We can do those
three things by reestablishing the child tax credit and continuing to
support childcare providers.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I will start by thanking my colleagues,
especially Senator Murray, for organizing this effort and also for her
life of being a passionate advocate for kids, especially as an early
childhood educator.
And I will start in another way that is a little nontraditional and
just be a proud dad. I have three adult children, and I am proud of
them all for different reasons. But my middle son, I am proud of him
because he is my only Phi Beta Kappa, and he also is an early childhood
educator. He decided that working as a childcare provider is what he
wants to do, and he has worked in both pre-K classroom settings and
also individually for families.
I know how little he makes, 10 years out of college. I know how he
loves to find some extra hours where he can make a little bit more. I
was excited that he was excited, a few years ago, when he told me that
he had picked up extra hours shoveling snow at the pre-K classroom.
Because he lives in Minnesota, there is a lot of snow to be shoveled.
So on nights or on weekends when there is snow, he is going to make a
little bit more by being the snow shoveler, so that kids, parents, and
teachers can come safely to school that day.
The stories that I hear traveling around Virginia are the same that
my colleagues have shared, but I just want to share two, one from a
parent and one from a provider.
Heather is in Fairfax City, in the most populous part of Virginia.
Here is what she told us:
One of the reasons my family ended up homeless was because
we didn't have access to quality, affordable childcare for
our boys when they were little. They also lost access to
programs that would allow them to be school-ready.
When I was pregnant with our twins, I was hospitalized for
almost 12 weeks, and we couldn't afford childcare for our
boys, so my husband would drop them off at the hospital so
that he would be able to go to work.
Unfortunately, without access to child care and a hospital
being no place for kids to stay all day long, he ended up
losing his job, which in turn meant we lost money to provide
for ourselves. We had to go on SNAP to have food, and
eventually, he lost his business, and we became homeless. . .
. One of the biggest contributing factors was the lack of
access to affordable child care.
At the time there was not enough space in programs like
Head Start. Without access to affordable, quality child care,
families are hurting. The lack of access to this vital
service has forced families to not be able to go to work, go
to school, or even leave kids at home in compromising
positions just to be able to put food on the table.
I forgot to include that at this time, we were considered
middle class before all this; both my husband and I are
college educated. I was working at first, too, but also had
to leave my job because we couldn't afford the child care for
both of us to work. And my husband is an honorably discharged
combat veteran. I meant to add this to help demonstrate how
far-reaching this is and to break down myths about who this
affects.
Quickly, at the other end of my State in Appalachia, Kristi, the
owner of a childcare center in Blacksburg:
Since the pandemic, we have had to decrease the number of
families that we were able to serve because we are having
such a difficult time with our staffing. Being able to pay
early childhood teachers has always been a significant
difficulty for us, but since the pandemic, it has [become]
tremendous. . . . I think what the Senate needs to understand
is that if this industry collapses, and I would say we are
very much on the verge of a major collapse, it is going to
have a detrimental impact on the workforce [and our economy].
That is why we have to act to restore the childcare funding that
created breathing room for our providers and our families, and I stand
together with my colleagues to do all we can to support President
Biden's request that we have $16 billion in childcare funding at this
most critical time.
With that, Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Cortez Masto). The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, my colleagues have said it so well. Very
briefly, I want to thank Senator Murray and all my colleagues who have
done such good work.
Let me start by saying that we Democrats are generally not supposed
to use the words ``supply-side economics.'' I want everybody to
understand we have to be supply-siders on childcare. We desperately
need more childcare facilities. We need more built. And I have no
qualms about saying as a proud Democrat and chairman of the Senate
Finance Committee I am a supply-sider on the issue of childcare.
I will say that everywhere I go in my State, big communities and
small communities, there are waiting lines, very long waiting lines,
for childcare. It is absolutely unacceptable.
We have to increase our supply. We passed a number of good pieces of
legislation. We have more to do.
Point No. 2 is this is a fundamental issue of American productivity.
We know that we are trying to compete in tough global markets. The
President of the Senate, in my part of the world, California, Oregon,
and the West, we have a geographical advantage, a leg up on China.
Let's not give it away with the absence of good childcare facilities.
You have to have childcare in order to be able to get to work and
know that your kid is going to be OK while you are gone making a
living.
Finally, the third point that I would make is that we need to tap all
the resources that are available in our communities--all of them. Child
care centers, in-home child care, and we should also be thinking of how
to partner with churches.
This isn't a red or blue issue. It's not a rural or urban issue. It's
an everyone issue. So our committees, working together, can do this.
But we ought to utilize all our resources.
I am going to make this a filibuster-free zone. My colleagues have
all said it, you know, really well. Supply-side economics for getting
us more childcare facilities. Let's focus on this as a productivity
issue, a competitiveness issue. Third, let's utilize all the resources
in our communities.
I congratulate all my colleagues, and it is great to see the Finance
Committee stalwarts out in force.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, I am so glad to join my colleagues on
the floor today to really emphasize how a family's life falls apart
when they don't have access to good childcare.
I am one of a handful of parents of young kids. I have no complaints.
Obviously, my wife and I make enough money so that we have been able to
provide quality childcare for our kids, as we have both been working
throughout their lives. But when you are living on a more modest
salary--not a poverty wage but just a modest, lower middle income
salary--your entire world can fall apart when you lose access to a
quality childcare environment. People have to quit their jobs.
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They have to move back in with their parents. They have to move their
entire family to a different city or a different State. Your entire
life gets upended when you can't find care for your child because you
will upend your entire life for your child. Nothing matters more than
making sure your child is safe.
So what we are forcing our families to do simply because we don't
choose to do the right thing and provide funding to make sure there is
affordable, quality childcare available--it is sending our families
into unnecessary crisis all over this country.
In my State, I have had 124,000 parents report that their work has
been disrupted by childcare issues, that they have had to leave work,
that they have had to leave employment because of an interruption in
childcare.
Our childcare centers in Connecticut--and we are a high-cost
childcare State. We are a high-cost State in general. Eighty-nine
percent of them report that they have had difficulty hiring staff, 60
percent of them say that right now they are understaffed, and 70
percent of them say that they have wait lists for new families, which
just shows you that all over Connecticut, we have a total mismatch
between the number of slots and the number of families who need those
slots.
Of course, that delivers enormous harm to families but also to our
workforce. I met a young woman a few weeks ago who lives in Hartford.
She has a very young child. They are on a waitlist for a subsidized
childcare slot. She wants to actually be a childcare worker. She wants
to help solve the workforce shortage. But she can't get into the
workforce. Why? Because she has to stay home to take care of her young
child.
So this cycle that ends up impacting not just families but our
economy writ large is one that we have to break.
I just want to leave you with this one last piece of math to just
explain how serious this situation is in my State.
In Connecticut, we have a program called Care for Kids, and this is a
program that does for lower income families--tries to give them some
subsidy so that they can afford childcare. But that program cuts off
for a one-child family at $41,500 a year income. That is a lower middle
income salary in Connecticut. That is a salary that is not unfamiliar
in my State.
Let me just do the very quick math for you. For a family of three, a
two-bedroom, one-bedroom house could be about $1,800 a month. Childcare
in Connecticut on average is going to be about $15,000 a year. Total up
just the costs for a family who makes just above the threshold to
qualify for our subsidy programs. Let's say a family makes $42,000,
doesn't qualify for our subsidy programs, is spending $22,000 a year on
rent, and is spending $15,000 a year on childcare. That is $37,000 a
year. They make $42,000. They have $5,000 left. That is $10 a week for
everything else--for food, for your cell phone, for clothes for your
kid. If you are making above the rate of subsidy in Connecticut, just
the cost of childcare and rent leaves you with $10 a week to survive.
In the richest, most affluent country in the world, how can we justify
leaving families who are doing the right thing, who are working, in
that position?
That is why I am so glad to be here on the floor with my colleagues
pleading with our Republican friends to do the right thing and support
the President's proposed plan to support affordable, quality childcare
in this country, for the families I represent in Connecticut.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, I am so pleased to be joining with my
colleagues today to talk about something that is so fundamentally
important for our families.
So many times, I have heard from folks saying: We are paying more for
childcare than our mortgage payment and trying to keep our house
together.
It is very frightening for many families trying to juggle those
costs. So we have an urgent need for our families, for our economy, for
our future.
Every morning, millions of families in Michigan and across the
country go through the very same ritual. Sleepy children are roused out
of bed, clothes are chosen, breakfasts are eaten, faces are washed,
teeth are brushed, snacks are packed, and then it is a scramble out the
door. Car seats are buckled and off to the local childcare center. Only
then can mom or dad's workday begin. For millions of families, this
essential daily routine is at risk of falling apart.
The American childcare system, already under severe strain before the
pandemic, now is in danger of collapse. During the pandemic, I am so
proud that we as Democrats cheered critical emergency funding that
helped keep 10 million children in childcare. That funding expired, as
colleagues have indicated, on September 30. Without it, more than
700,000 childcare programs could close--700,000--and 3.2 million
families could be left scrambling.
As programs are forced to close their doors, quality care will be
harder and harder to find, and what care is available will be harder
and harder for families to afford.
Some people may say: You know, I don't have kids in childcare. Why
should I care?
You will care when your doctor or dental appointment gets canceled
because the nurse or the hygienist can't find anyone to watch their
children that day. You will care when your favorite coffee shop shuts
down because the owners can't find enough workers. You will care when
your very best employee has to drop out of the workforce and stay home
with her baby because she can't find quality, affordable childcare.
The childcare industry is like the scaffolding that our entire
economy rests on. When that scaffolding collapses, down goes the
economy. President Biden understands that, and he has requested the
critical funding needed to keep this crucial scaffolding standing. It
is time that we come together on a bipartisan basis and act. American
families, American parents, and children just can't wait.
Just as importantly, we have another challenge we need to be meeting
right now that relates to families, to moms and kids. We need to ensure
that American moms and American babies aren't going hungry on our
watch.
We have this wonderful program that has been supported on a
bipartisan basis since the beginning called the WIC--Women, Infants,
and Children--Program. It is a program that provides critical food
assistance, medical screenings, breastfeeding support, baby formula,
and nutrition education to pregnant moms, new moms, and children under
age 5.
Right now, we also have a funding cliff happening and a critical need
for funding. Since 1997, WIC has been fully funded to cover all
eligible moms and babies and prevent waiting lists. Now, we can all
come together. We should all be coming together to want healthy
babies--pregnant moms being healthy, delivering healthy babies, and
having the nutrition available for moms and babies during the early
years of a child's life. That is what WIC does, and it has been fully
funded since 1997.
Congress has always understood there can't be a waiting list for
pregnant moms. How do you have a waiting list when the whole pregnancy
lasts 9 months? It makes no sense. To get the nutrition that moms need
and that babies need, we have to make sure there are not waiting lists,
and newborns just keep growing whether they have the food they need or
not.
But now there is a $1 billion shortfall in the funding of the
program. Without funding, full funding, moms and babies are at risk of
being put on waiting lists for the first time ever in the history of
the program in the United States or of seeing critical nutritional
support cut. This would take away essential nutrition assistance during
a critical time in a baby's life. Soon, States are going to start
making decisions about their budgets, and we need to provide assurance
to States that they can continue to serve everyone and keep their
promise--our promise--to moms and babies.
As anyone who has done it knows, raising a family is a tough, tough
job. The last thing parents should worry about when they are trying to
wash those faces and find those coats and get the kids out the door is
whether or not their childcare center is going to be open and available
or whether they will lose the baby formula that their baby needs.
American families are raising the next generation. We always say
children are our future. The fact is, they
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don't wait to grow up. Whether we act or not, they just keep growing.
We need to have a sense of urgency about this. We all care about our
children. We need to act to make sure quality, affordable childcare is
there and the nutrition support for our moms and babies is there as
well.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I rise today in strong support of
Senator Murray's Child Care Stabilization Act.
We know how much of a lifeline this program has been for families,
for childcare providers, and our economy since it was established in
2021. Thanks to this program, 220,000 childcare providers stayed
afloat. Up to 10 million kids' childcare slots were saved, and the
unemployment rate for moms with kids under age 6 empowered moms to
return to work at rates we have not seen.
The need for high-quality childcare is one of those issues I hear
about all over Minnesota, from the Iron Range up north to our farming
towns in Southern Minnesota, from urban areas in the Twin Cities to
suburbs across the metro. It doesn't matter how qualified you are or
how badly you may want a job, if there is no one to watch your kids,
you can't go to work. Too often, people are in this situation because
there are simply no childcare options.
I think about Pam and her husband, who live in Cottage Grove, MN.
They both work full time and rely on daycare centers to look after
their two little kids. They are paying more than $2,800 a month for
childcare, meaning Pam's husband's whole paycheck goes toward paying
those costs.
Pam told me:
We may soon join the increasing ranks of parents forced to
leave the workforce because they have no other option.
Another Minnesotan, Erin, is a new mom, who a year after having her
baby still can't find an open childcare spot. She sent email after
email to local providers, but all she got in response was an
overwhelming number of ``no infant openings.'' Many of these providers
told Erin that they wouldn't have openings for years. When she finally
found an opening, she could hardly afford it.
Then there is Amelia, who lives in Richfield--a southern suburb in
the Twin Cities--and pays over $15,000 a year for each of her two kids.
Her family is facing the same dilemma as so many others:
We can't pay our mortgage if I stay home, but we barely
take anything home after paying to send our twins to
preschool.
Pam, Erin, and Amelia, who live in different parts of our State--and
they have way different jobs--and the 51 percent of Americans who also
live in childcare deserts deserve better. They deserve high-quality
childcare that is in their budgets and that actually has open spots for
kids.
The good news? We have been making progress in my State. Here are a
few examples.
In Redwood Falls, a brandnew childcare center will provide the area
with more than 70 new childcare slots with a combination of funding,
private and public.
The town of Morris--a college town near South Dakota--started a
program that I visited. They have six childcare pods. They are
apartments that could be converted to senior housing if they want, but
it allows small providers--who maybe have six to eight kids--to have a
place that is safe for the kids. They share a parking lot and the like.
That facility in a smaller town serves more than 80 kids.
Just a few weeks ago, I was in new facilities in Perham, MN, at the
Children's Corner. Those were two companies--one is food manufacturing,
with about 700 employees, the other a healthcare company. They combined
and paid for the expansion of the existing private childcare nonprofit
facility, doubled the number of childcare slots, and got some promised
to their kids out of those companies but a whole lot more for everyone
else.
Fiscal year 2023 congressionally directed spending also made it
possible for the Hallie Q. Brown-Martin Luther King Service Center in
St. Paul to build additional daycare facilities.
We are making huge steps in the right direction, including coming out
of our State legislature in the last year, but Congress needs to pick
up this momentum to do right by people like Pam and Erin and Amelia and
pass the Child Care Stabilization Act.
For far too many parents, the lack of available, affordable childcare
is a barrier to finding a job. I thank Senator Murray for this
incredibly important legislation. While we work to strengthen our
childcare workforce--it has got to be a piece of this in a big way--and
build facilities where families need them the most, we need to ensure
that our childcare centers have the funding they need to provide
affordable, high-quality care.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Nevada.
Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Madam President, I rise today, along with my
colleagues, because, as the President pro tempore has heard, we have a
childcare crisis in this country. Families can't afford it; employers
don't have the funds to subsidize it; and providers can't pay their
workers. In my home State of Nevada, it can cost more to send your kids
to childcare than it does to send them to college. It is just
outrageous, and we have to do something about it.
One of the many consequences of this crisis is that some parents who
can't afford childcare have to stay home with their kids instead of
reentering the workforce. I hear this all the time in Nevada. Nearly 39
percent of women with children younger than 5 years old have quit their
jobs in the last 3 years. Over 90 percent of those women willingly
decided to leave their jobs and stop earning an income, not because
they were laid off or had their hours cut back but because they needed
to stay home with their children because they lacked the resources for
childcare in this country to afford it. It is hurting our families. It
is hurting our children and our economy, quite frankly. We must expand
access to childcare now.
We took steps to lower childcare costs for families when we passed
the American Rescue Plan. That funding has made a difference for
families across the country. In Nevada, that means families of four
that make up to $70,000 a year are getting help covering their
childcare costs. It means all copays for childcare programs have been
waived. It means that thousands of families across my State have been
able to breathe easier knowing that they won't have to choose between
groceries and their kids' tuitions.
A perfect example is Christine McNally, who lives in Northern Nevada,
in Reno. She works with these families every day at her two childcare
centers in Northern Nevada. She told me about a single mom she works
with who has three kids. Now, before the American Rescue Plan passed
that lowered childcare costs, this mother was paying $120 per week in
copays. That is $120 per week. Not having to cover the cost of these
copays anymore has been huge for her and her family. It has helped
alleviate so much financial pressure. Now she can pay her electric
bills without having to worry about covering other costs, including
childcare.
The problem is, as we have heard from our colleagues, this
legislation expired this year, and, unfortunately, we don't have all of
our colleagues who want to continue to support this. What I am hearing
from some really far-right Republicans is a refusal to work with us to
extend this program, and that is going to be devastating for so many
families across the country, including in Nevada, including Christine's
families whom she works with.
Thousands of them are going to see skyrocketing costs next year.
Parents who have no one else to look after their children will face
impossible choices, and many will choose to leave the workforce so that
they can care for their kids themselves. Providers won't be able to
continue to pay their staffs, forcing many to look for employment
elsewhere, and childcare programs across the country will shut down.
Families will have to stay on longer waiting lists for even more time
to access the remaining programs. We just cannot let that happen.
Childcare is critical for our families. This isn't a partisan issue;
this is about helping working families across the country. This is what
they want. This is what I hear in my State. This is what I hear across
the country. We
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have to pass the Child Care Stabilization Act now to protect it and to
protect our families.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, across the country, parents and
caregivers are bending over backward to try to get their children in
early education. They are paying tens of thousands of dollars out of
pocket, relying on family, friends, and neighbors, or are simply giving
up work or their own educations because they can't find a childcare
program with an opening. At the same time, overworked and underpaid
providers are struggling to prop up childcare programs, burning
themselves out, and leaving empty, shuttered classrooms behind them.
The system is broken, and if we leave it broken, we are failing
multiple generations of people who are relying upon us to fix it--to
fix the broken system.
As Marian Wright Edelman said, investing in children is not a
national luxury or a national choice; it is a national necessity--a
national necessity for our future.
If we want the 21st century to be better than the 20th century, we
don't have a choice--it is a necessity.
When the pandemic began, Congress stepped up and provided the largest
ever onetime investment in the childcare sector through the American
Rescue Plan, and it worked. In Massachusetts, childcare providers
received higher pay; programs stayed safe and open in more places and
for more hours through the day. We kept classrooms open and prevented
families from trying to decide how to continue working and finding a
safe place for their children to learn, to grow, and to thrive.
But the pandemic-era money is drying up, and those cracks that
ruptured in 2020 were from years of underinvestment long before we had
ever heard of COVID-19. If we fail to maintain this investment--if we
fail 3.2 million children who would lose their care and the 232,000
childcare workers who would lose their jobs--then it would be a tragedy
for our country. It would ultimately be an economic catastrophe for our
country that we did not invest in those children in the same way that
we were invested in by preceding generations.
One of the reasons that they called an earlier generation the
``greatest generation,'' they weren't as wealthy as us, but they were
wiser than us. They knew that every child had to be invested in. And
that is why we are the country that we are today.
The challenge for this generation is, are we as wise as preceding
generations? Do we understand that it is only out of selfishness that
we would not make the same decision that those earlier generations made
in children to whom they were not related either, who did not come from
the same ethnic group as they did either, but they did it because it
would help our country?
I am so proud that Massachusetts is a leader in childcare. State-
level investments have saved almost 1,000 programs and 18,000 seats
across the State from closure. But we can't expect States to keep
plugging the holes of a failing system. We can't keep letting early
educators and childcare providers bear the weight of underinvestment.
We can't let generations of families fall behind because of a broken
system. And we cannot let our childcare system--and all of the
children, all of the families, all of the workers and providers in it--
fall off a cliff because there isn't enough funding for the children in
our country to get the care that they need.
We need to give States the financial freedom to invest, to improve
quality, to reduce costs, and to expand access. We need to guarantee
children and families have high-quality childcare. We need a national,
permanent solution to the childcare crisis.
If we want kids to thrive when they start school, if we want families
to move out of poverty, we need to fund stabilization, support children
and families, and build a childcare system that works.
So I thank Senator Murray for her great historic leadership on this
issue, for fighting for all of those children in our country to make
sure they get the help that they deserve, because they are the ones who
are going to make America better in the 21st century.
Young people are only 20 percent of our population, but they are 100
percent of our future. That is all Senator Murray is talking about. Let
us invest in them in the same way that we were invested in by previous
generations.