States Seek Further Relief For Child Care As They Deplete CARES Act Dollars
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The CARES Act provided states with critical funding to support child care providers and working families through the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic, but funds have run out in many states. As a result, only half the states are able to continue offering child care grants to providers through the fall, as shown in the new CARES Act Child Care & Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Funding Tracker and analysis by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC).
Due to the lack of further dedicated federal relief, some states have since resorted to other sources of funding, providing varying levels of support to sustain their crumbling child care systems. Among the 50 states featured in the BPC tracker, 21 of them have dedicated non-CCDBG funds for child care providers—14 of which are sourcing from the Coronavirus Relief fund, and three are using funding from the Preschool Development Grant.
Especially notable in BPC’s findings is the statistic that 13 out of the 34 states that offered child care providers subsidies based on pre-pandemic enrollment over the summer have reverted to attendance-based payments. This comes at a time when child care providers are already operating under significantly reduced capacity and higher costs to comply with public health guidelines.
“It is clear that more federal funding is desperately needed to prevent more permanent closures and additional parents from pulling out of the workforce all together,” concluded the BPC study. “Congress should investigate providing dedicated assistance to both community-based school-aged care providers and child care providers to allow parents to continue working or go back to work, and to enable a successful economic recovery.”
Women are dropping out of the workforce as child care closures continue
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The September jobs report revealed that women continue to be hit hard by the pandemic as child care responsibilities make it difficult for mothers to continue working or return to work.
New York Times reporter Jeanna Smialek wrote that many women dropped out of the workforce entirely in September, as labor force participation dropped to 55.6 percent from 56.1 percent. Aside from April and May of 2020, this marks the lowest reading for women’s labor force participation since 1987.
Smialek writes, “Census Bureau and Minneapolis Fed research suggests mothers have been far more likely than fathers to pull back on work amid the pandemic. About one in five working-age adults said this summer that they were not working was because the pandemic disrupted their child care — and of those not working, women ages 25 to 44 were almost three times as likely as men to be out of a job thanks to child care.”
Economic experts are sounding the alarm. In a recent speech, Thomas Barkin, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond said, “As we head into the fall, the challenges of virtual schooling and prolonged child care closures may already be putting downward pressure on women’s participation.”
Over the past few months, we’ve heard from countless early learning and care facilities across the country who, after doing everything possible to stay afloat, have had to make the difficult decision to close their doors for good as a result of the pandemic.
Last week, Hopkins Early Learning Center (HELC) just outside of Minneapolis, MN, informed the families and community they’d served for four decades that they had begun the process of dissolving. Over 115 children are typically enrolled at HELC. Now, their families must find other options at a time when options are few and far between.
The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated America’s already-fragile child care industry. On average, child care providers nationwide are facing a 59% increase in operating costs to keep up with health and safety standards, while enrollment is down over 67% — unsustainable figures for an industry that has always operated on razor-thin margins.
Child care providers have made clear they need financial relief to be able to stay in business through what promises to be an unstable and unpredictable year ahead.
Even school leaders at HELC tried to convince Congress of the dire situation they and others were facing… back in May. Take a look at their message:
While a number of proposals have been introduced in Congress to provide much-needed relief to American families and businesses — including child care providers — leaders have failed to reach a deal in negotiating a final package.
Until they do, more programs like Hopkins Early Learning Center will continue to close. And with every day that passes, the situation becomes increasingly more dire for working parents and the incredible early educators who care for America’s young children.
Learn more about the impact of the nation’s child care crisis at childcarerelief.org.
