Unless Congress Acts, We’re Heading Toward a Child Care Cliff
This September, child care programs throughout the United States will face an existential crisis, as federal funds that saved the child care sector during the pandemic expire. As a result, tens of thousands of child care programs will close and millions of children will lose spots, with states bearing the brunt of the economic impact.
Join The Century Foundation and partners on Thursday, June 22, 2023 from 1:30 to 2:30 PM ET, exactly 100 days from when federal funds sunset, to learn about TCF’s groundbreaking new study about the looming child care cliff and what we can do to avoid it.
Featured Remarks:
Senator Patty Murray (D-WA)
Speakers:
Julie Kashen, director, women's economic justice and senior fellow, The Century Foundation
A member of the U.S. House of Representatives (TBD)
A family child care provider (TBD)
Live CART and ASL interpretation will be provided. Presented by The Century Foundation in partnership with: Alliance for Early Success, All Our Kin, Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy, Center for American Progress, Care Can’t Wait, Caring Across Generations, Child Care Aware of America, Child Care for Every Family Network, Center for Law and Social Policy, Community Change, Family Values @ Work, First Focus, Futures Without Violence, Home Grown, MomsRising, National Association for the Education of Young Children, National Association for Family Child Care, National Partnership for Women and Families, National Education Association, Neighborhood Villages, New America, National Women’s Law Center, Oxfam, Research 2 Impact, Save the Children, SEIU, YWCA, and Zero to Three.
Speaker Bios
Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) is Washington state’s senior Senator and a member of Senate Democratic leadership since 2007. Patty has a proven track record of fighting for Washington state families and breaking through partisan gridlock to solve problems, fight for progressive policies, and help workers, families, and communities. In addition to being the first female Senator from Washington state, Patty served as the first female Chair of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee during the 112th Congress and served as the first female Chair of the Senate Budget Committee during the 113th Congress. She is currently Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.
Julie Kashen is a senior fellow and director for women’s economic justice at The Century Foundation, with expertise in work and family, caregiving, economic mobility, and labor. Kashen has more than two decades of experience forwarding these issues in federal and state government and through the nonprofit sector, including helping to draft three major pieces of national legislation. As a labor policy advisor to the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), she helped draft and build momentum for the first paid sick days bill in Congress, the Healthy Families Act. As policy director of the three-year Make It Work campaign, she drafted a visionary child care proposal, whose principles were incorporated into the Child Care for Working Families Act. And as a senior advisor to the National Domestic Workers Alliance, she led the work to create and introduce the first ever national Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. In addition, as deputy director of policy for Senator Jon Corzine (D-NJ), she helped New Jersey become the second state in the nation to adopt paid family and medical leave. She is an active member of many child care, paid leave, and equal pay coalitions and tables. Kashen has been affiliated with The Century Foundation since 2015. Kashen holds a master’s in public policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a bachelor’s with highest honors in political science from the University of Michigan.
