Wisconsin advocates for early-childhood education and working families are pushing for Congress to pass a bill that would lower the cost of child care in Wisconsin and across the country.
The Childcare for Working Families Act would ensure that families spend no more than 7% of their income on child care. By that standard, more than 90% of Wisconsin families cannot afford child care for an infant.
Paula Drew, director of early care and education policy and research at the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association, shared her personal experience with figuring out how to afford care for her youngest child.
"The cost of child care then was more than our mortgage payment," she said, "and we were definitely making other decisions of what not to do with our finances in order to be able to afford the necessities, and I would really consider child care as being a necessity."
Currently, infant care in Wisconsin costs more than in-state public college tuition.
The bill, which is currently stalled in Congress, also recognizes the need for additional resources to open more child-care programs, particularly in rural areas - and to properly compensate early educators who earn an average of about $14 per hour.
Drew highlighted how federal funding cuts have negatively impacted organizations serving young learners. She noted that executive orders have led to delayed payments and confusion because of the closure of regional offices. Wisconsin is one of the states that lost their dedicated base.
"When payments were paused earlier this year," she said, "there were a number of Head Start providers in the state of Wisconsin who had to take out loans in order to make their salary payments to their staff while they were waiting for funding to come in.
Drew emphasized the need for federal investment in early care and education, highlighting deep care gaps since the COVID-19 pandemic. She stressed how this "textbook broken market" has broader economic impacts, affecting local economies, tax revenues and hiring capabilities of companies.
"What we see now is families with the greatest amount of resources are able to access the majority of the care," she said, "leaving out working families that really rely on the care every day to go to work."
The Childcare for Working Families Act would fund grants to open new child-care centers and guarantee higher wages for providers, in order to stabilize and grow the workforce. The two biggest programs in the bill would receive about $12 billion each. Most House and Senate Democrats are backing the bill, but Republicans oppose it because of its cost.
