Would be a hell of a lot better platform point for them to emphasize than the student loan forgiveness they’ve been trying to push. Out of curiosity, do you have any details on their proposed plan for child care? Seems to me like the kind of thing they would cut off for people earning more than $150k or some other arbitrary cutoff.
I couldn’t quite remember what the income cut off was but I knew earlier in the year I had read about the Biden team putting forth a proposal for a childcare subsidy. It looks like it had a cut off of $200,000 household income.
“As part of his budget
proposal on Monday, President Joe Biden is asking Congress to make child care more affordable for the parents of 16 million children around the country.
The president is requesting a $500 million increase in Child Care and Development Block Grant funding, which states use to lower the cost of child care for low-income families and raise child care provider wages.
But advocates say it’s not enough to stabilize the nation’s child care system, which has been teetering ever since the nearly $40 billion in child care subsidies approved under the American Rescue Plan Act expired at the end of September.
As part of his budget
proposal on Monday, President Joe Biden is asking Congress to make child care more affordable for the parents of 16 million children around the country.
The president is requesting a $500 million increase in Child Care and Development Block Grant funding, which states use to lower the cost of child care for low-income families and raise child care provider wages.
But advocates say it’s not enough to stabilize the nation’s child care system, which has been teetering ever since the nearly $40 billion in child care subsidies approved under the American Rescue Plan Act expired at the end of September.
Biden’s proposal would give providers some help, said Patricia Cole, senior policy director for the advocacy group Zero to Three. But it wouldn't be enough.
She applauded a separate proposal in Biden’s budget to create “a historic new program” in which households making up to $200,000 would receive subsidies to pay for child care. According to the proposal, most parents would pay just $10 a day. Low-income families would receive free child care.
The new program would mainly benefit parents, Cole said, adding that, although the administration has not released details of the proposal, it could still include much-needed funding to raise the salaries of child care workers.
To stabilize the industry, though, Cole said Congress would have to approve the $16 billion that Biden requested last year to restore the ARPA child care subsidies for providers as part of the current fiscal year’s spending. Biden is expected to continue seeking the funding as part of supplemental funding separate from the normal budget legislation. But Congress does not appear to be considering such an increase.
Cole said the child care grants could also see a slight increase in the final six appropriations bills the House and Senate are currently negotiating.“
In his budget, the president is asking Congress for more money for child care and the restoration of several pandemic-era programs, including the full child care tax expansion.
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