Washington saw major changes in child care policies this year.
The passage of the Fair Start for Kids Act in May lowered the amount families pay in copayments to licensed child care providers and expanded the number of people eligible for assistance.
Now, a set of federal proposals could expand on those changes, though the Build Back Better Act is in limbo in Washington, D.C.
The federal level
Child care is part of the Build Back Better Act, the Biden administration’s $2 trillion domestic policy bill. The bill contains funding aimed at addressing the pandemic, climate change and social services. It was dealt a blow over the weekend by West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who said he would not vote for it.
The plan proposes funding to reduce the amount parents have to pay child care providers. Families making less than 250% of their state’s median income would pay no more than 7% of their income on copayments. Families would pay a smaller and smaller percentage as their income bracket goes down. Universal preschool is also included in the proposal.
To increase the availability of child care, the bill sets aside a quarter of child care funding in its first three years to support the industry, including higher wages for child care workers.
States would have to opt into the plan and its procedures to receive the funding. Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, Democrats from Washington state, support the bill.
Murray, who has fought for decades to transform the nation’s child care system, highlighted the choice many families must make between sending a parent to work and paying for child care or having a parent stay out of the workforce to watch young children.
“Whether you are a teacher or a bus driver or work in a hospital or whether you work in a service industry, this is the biggest stress families face today and we are addressing it,” Murray said.
Washington state impact
Child care advocates said the proposed legislation would continue the progress made in accessibility and affordability for Washington families.
“The provisions in Build Back Better really build upon a foundation of the work that has happened with the Fair Start for Kids Act,” said Nicole Rose, assistant secretary of early learning at the Washington State Department of Children, Youth and Families.
Under the Fair Start for Kids Act, families that make up to 60% of the state’s median income qualify for state subsidies to help pay for child care.
Not all families who will be eligible will receive assistance right away. The subsidies will roll out between 2022 and 2025. Families with incomes that are at or below the median for their state will receive the subsidies first, giving low-income families a head start. That limit will increase year by year until 2025, when families making up to 2.5 times the state median income will qualify.
In Washington, the monthly median income for a family of four is $8,566 this year, according to the Washington Department of Social and Health Services.
“The big change is that more families are going to have access to affordable, high-quality care,” Rose said.
The Build Back Better Act has received criticism over the possibility it would increase demand for child care to an unsustainable level, in an area where demand already exceeds supply. Prior to the pandemic, Washington had 35 child care slots for infants or young children for every 100 children with working parents, according to ChildCare Aware data.
Ryan Pricco, the director of policy and advocacy for ChildCare Aware, said advocates know that the true demand for child care is much higher than what it is on paper, since there are people — particularly women — who leave the workforce to care for their children.
Improvements in child care infrastructure could allow these people to re-enter the workforce, he said.
A certain amount of the bill’s child care funding is reserved to support current and future child care providers.
“I think the best thing about Build Back Better are the investments that it makes into child care programs, into the actual teachers in child care, because that’s the biggest problem that we have in the industry right now,” Pricco said. “The folks that provide care make poverty wages.”
Lorena Miranda, who owns and operates Nani’s Child Care in Yakima, is a union representative with the state’s in-home child care providers union, SEIU Local 925. She said increased wages would make a big difference for child care workers. Low wages contribute to the high turnover in the field.
Licensed providers must keep the ratio of adult workers to children low, though the pandemic allowed for that ratio to grow a bit, Miranda said. So even if a provider has the space and desire to take in more kids, it’s impossible to do without additional workers.
“Many assistants do not want to work with child care centers or licensed homes because they make minimum wage. They don’t want to be working for minimum wage when they can go to McDonald’s and get way more for that.”
A wage increase would make it more enticing for people to remain in the child care industry, she said, and provide stability.
Many child care providers recently received grants from the Department of Children, Youth and Families related to the Fair Start for Kids Act. But those grants cannot sustain higher wages for very long, since they were one-time payments, Miranda said.
The child care plan in Build Back Better would be funded through 2027.
Will Build Back Better Act pass?
The bill passed the House of Representatives in November, but hit a wall in the Senate. Senators have split along party lines, with Democrats in support and Republicans in opposition. Manchin said Sunday that he would not support its current version, which means Democrats are one vote short of the 50 votes needed.
In a statement Sunday, Murray affirmed her determination to keep working on the bill’s passage. Other prominent Democrats have made similar pledges, the Associated Press reported.
“Joe Manchin might have woken up today and decided his job changed, but I know exactly what mine is: fighting for Washington state workers and families,” she said in the statement. “So my fight for Build Back Better, and all it would do to help our state and country, will not stop until it’s on the president’s desk.”
The Senate will reconvene on Jan. 3.
