Statement: Child Care Experts Praise Inclusion of Child Care and Early Education Provisions In Build Back Better Framework

“Today’s proposal unveiled by Congress and President Biden would put us on a path toward doing something that has eluded us for generations - finally fixing our country’s broken child care system.”

Boston, MA (October 28, 2021) - Neighborhood Villages, a Boston-based systems-change non-profit with a mission to make child care and early education more affordable and accessible for all, today commended the reconciliation package released today by President Joe Biden and Congress that includes transformational funding for our country’s early education and care system. It also joins with advocates in calling for inclusion of paid leave, a critical component of the care continuum, in the final bill.

The package, released today, would invest approximately $400 billion in our country’s early education and care system. Among other things, it would:

●      Ensure universal preschool for all 3- and 4-year olds. This will expand access to free high-quality preschool for more than 6 million children across the country.

●      Limit child care costs for families to no more than 7% of income for families earning up to 250% of state median income. Massachusetts, currently boasts the second highest child care costs in the country with families spending an average of $30,000-35,000 per year for child care. 

●      Help dramatically increase the availability and accessibility of child care programs to all families of all incomes and backgrounds.  Pre-pandemic, more than half of Massachusetts residents lived in child-care deserts, where there are few or no licensed providers for children in need of care. Nationally, we are still missing 10% of child care jobs.

●      Offer a lifeline to working parents, particularly women, in dire need of care for their children. The pandemic has seen an exodus of millions of women from the workforce, and nearly one million have stopped working all together. Data shows that a significant contributor to women’s slow return back to the workforce is lack of child care. 

The package also extends the expanded Child Tax Credit for one additional year, with monthly payments for households earning up to $150,000 per year. The package makes refundability of the Child Tax Credit Permanent. 

Notably missing from the package, however, is the inclusion of paid family leave. The United States is one of only six countries with no national paid leave.

The following is a statement from Neighborhood Villages Co-President and Chief Strategy Officer Lauren Kennedy.

“Today’s proposal unveiled by Congress and President Biden would put us on a path toward doing something that has eluded us for generations - finally fixing our country’s broken child care system. Our country would finally be declaring that child care and early education is an essential public good and should be treated as such. The investments announced today would give children a more equal shot at achieving their potential and offer a lifeline to working parents - particularly women - who have been hit so hard during this pandemic. 

The exclusion of paid family and medical leave from the reconciliation package, though, is deeply disappointing. For parents, paid leave is child care. It is the financial security that allows the parent to be the care provider for children during their earliest days. The ability to take time from work to bond with one’s child should not be a luxury, it should be the right of every family. We urge Congress to include paid leave in the final bill.

While the inclusion of universal free preschool and more affordable child care in the reconciliation package is welcome news, our work to transform our early education and care system - so that it equitably serves families, providers, and teachers - is just beginning. In Massachusetts, we have a head start: passing the complementary policy framework developed under the Common Start legislation that is currently before the Massachusetts legislature will equip the Commonwealth to move quickly as these desperately needed federal funds become available. We must rise to meet this moment.”

Neighborhood Villages, founded in 2017 by Lauren Kennedy and Sarah Muncey, is a Boston-based systems-change non-profit that advocates for early education and care policy reform and implements scalable solutions that address the biggest challenges facing providers and the families who rely on them. Neighborhood Villages is also part of the Common Start Coalition that has filed Massachusetts legislation (H.605 and S.362)  that would establish a system of affordable, high-quality early education and child care for all Massachusetts families. For more information, visit https://www.neighborhoodvillages.org/our-work.

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