Families pinched by child care costs as relief bill stalls in Congress
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Advocates for working families want Congress to do more to lower the cost of child care, in Arizona and across the U.S.
The Child Care for Working Families Act is stalled in the Republican-controlled Congress. Introduced in April, the bill would increase federal funding to ensure child care would cost no more than $15 a day for families earning the median income, which in Arizona is about $78,000 a year.
Casey Peeks, senior director of early childhood policy at the Center for American Progress, said the bill would also make child care free for extremely low-income families.
"It's not just tackling the cost of child care but also the supply, so looking at facilities and the workforce," Peeks explained. "It also has a provision around universal preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds."
Republican opposition centers around cost. The bill has not been given a score by the Congressional Budget Office but the two biggest programs, the Child Care and Development Fund and Head Start, each got about $12 billion this fiscal year. The bill would also fund grants to open new child care centers and guarantee higher wages for providers, in order to stabilize and grow the workforce.
Peeks pointed out the nationwide shortage of providers is a critical part of the problem, creating what are known as "child care deserts."
"We also know that child care is incredibly expensive," Peeks emphasized. "The Center for American Progress did a report last year that found that a 134,000 families a year are pushed into poverty because of child care expenses."
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has threatened to eliminate the Head Start program and tried to withhold funding earlier this year. The U.S. Senate passed a funding bill which would increase the program’s budget but the House version is still a work in progress.
