Family-friendly policy solutions should respect the inherent values and rights of parents, infants, toddlers, children through 5 years of age, and the early education field. When families with young children don’t have the right to choose high-quality care and education experiences, children’s developmental health suffers alongside families’ economic stability and U.S. economic prosperity. The Early Childhood Policy team promotes progressive policies and strategies that support infant and toddler well-being as well as high-quality child care and early childhood education in state and local communities.
Top 5 Actions Governors Can Take To Address the Child Care Shortage
Governors must take the lead in instituting policies that fairly compensate early childhood providers for the skilled work they perform, incentivize the creation of programs in child care deserts, and relieve families of the high cost of care.
Disparities in Housing, Health Care, Child Care, and Economic Security Affect Babies for Life
Social determinants of health, such as access to secure housing, family employment and economic stability, education, and child care, must be the focus of federal policies to support infant and toddler health.
The Build Back Better Act Substantially Expands Child Care Assistance
The Build Back Better Act ensures child care assistance for 16 times as many young children as under current law, and in some states, it would help state child care agencies reach more than 25 times as many children and their families.
Investing in Home Care and Early Childhood Educators Has Outsize Impacts on Employment
Proposed investments in the Build Back Better agenda would benefit a significant number of workers, particularly women and women of color; transform the home care and early childhood sectors; and lift living standards and employment prospects for millions of Americans.
These Interconnected Policies Would Sustain Families, Support Women, and Grow the Economy
Together, the policies included in the Biden administration’s Build Back Better agenda would propel families’ and the country’s economic security by prioritizing child care, the child tax credit, paid family and medical leave, and good jobs that get Americans back to work.
The lack of affordable and high-quality child care has disproportionately pushed women out of the workforce for decades. It is long past time for the United States to provide adequate, sustained funding and end the child care crisis.
Optimizing Distribution of American Rescue Plan Funds To Stabilize Child Care
Community-based intermediary organizations can help states quickly deliver the American Rescue Plan’s $24 billion child care relief and stabilization fund to child care providers.
6 Ways To Ensure Preschool Contributes to an Equitable Early Childhood System
The Biden-Harris administration has an opportunity to create a world-class preschool program that addresses racial and income inequities, but it must be part of a continuum of support for children from birth to kindergarten.
6 State Strategies To Improve Child Care Policies During the Pandemic and Beyond
As the child care market struggles to survive the impact of the pandemic, states can implement strategies to improve child care so that it better meets the needs of working families, children, educators, and employers.
