Inexpensive and high-quality baby care is n’t merely an issue for personal people: It’s a workforce and work issue that Congress can and should get really, Sens. Katie Britt and Patty Murray said Wednesday.
Britt, a Republican from Alabama, and Murray, a Democrat from Washington, are usually on opposite sides of the aisle on critical issues. But in a virtual celebration hosted by AL. com and The Seattle Times, and joined by Lisa Hamilton, CEO of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, each agreed to take the people ’ ideas on how to tackle increasing prices of attention, and gaps in policy, significantly.
“ When I think about activities like my own or like my family members, or the constituents whose tales I hear, I know that doing nothing is not an option. And so we’ve got to figure out how to do things and truly how to do it together, ” Britt said.
How did we get to this place?
In 2023, the Annie E. Casey Foundation put out a record about the child care problems. Alabama’s child care cost is about$ 7,500, which is cheap for some people, but as much as a third of a single parent’s regular income, according to the Kids Count Data Book.
And the cost of newborn baby care is more than in-state college education in 34 claims, Hamilton said Wednesday.
“So if we’ve got families contributing north of 30 % of their income to child care, that is the definition of unaffordable, ” she said.
Baby care is considered affordable if it costs households no more than 7 % of their money, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
In 2022 , more than 1 in 10 youthful children had a family who had to leave, move down or greatly alter a job in the previous year because of kid treatment problems, according to current reporting from AL. web, The Seattle Times and the federal Education Reporting Collaborative.
Britt said the cost of baby care across Alabama is essentially untenable, and cited her personal experience– like Murray – of being a younger mom trying to figure out treatment.
“ When I was in this position, you know, about 14 years ago, looking for baby treatment and the cost of it was celestial then. I think about how much we were paying to take our two children to care in Tuscaloosa and then Birmingham and how hard it would have been to make ends meet had we not had a nest egg set off, ” Britt said.
“For those men and women who want to provide our labor, we want to make sure that they have the opportunity to accomplish that. And so whether it is price or supply, it seems like we are failing on both sides, ” Britt said.
For parents like Adriane Burnett, a single mother of two kids, child care expenses upended her funds, leaving her without a car, behind on homeowner association payment and filing for bankruptcy.
Burnett gave up a$ 2 an afternoon promotion because she does not include accessible care to work the extra time. Though, she also must job three work, seven days a week to manage the child care she does possess.
Murray said the issue needs to be treated like an infrastructure concern, with continuous support from the federal government.
“How did we get around? Because our country has not really taken the issue of kid treatment as an incredibly critical foundation to our economy. So it has been a motionless concern for many, many years. Kids really struggled with it. They either did n’t take a job or they left the job market or they had child care that was n’t safe, ” Murray said.
Murray said she believes tackling problems like pricing and access will support parents return to and be in the workplace.
In 2022, about 85,000 Alabama people needed exposure to child care but had no affordable, excellent choices in their communities, according to the Women’s Foundation of Alabama.
In Jefferson County, Alabama infant and toddler baby treatment cost an average of$ 10,662 per year in 2023. Jefferson County women’s median income was$ 27,952, with a median family income of$ 67,455.
As many as 19 % of working families in Alabama said they had had to miss work owing to infant care issues, the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found in 2021.
“Right then, our state is losing income, because we don’t possess child care facilities. ” Murray said.
Finding common ground, republican solutions
Participants cited alterations made in Washington state and in Alabama, as well as tips for how other state and areas you address the issue.
Earlier this month, Gov. Kay Ivey signed the “Working for Alabama” legislative package, which includes HB358 , the infant care revenue credit bill that politicians say will help solve both worry spaces and the state’s small labor force participation rate.
“ I truly think that some of the dilemmas Sens. Murray and Britt have raised around tax credits for individual families, whether that ’s the earned income tax credit or the Child and Dependent Care Credit, those certainly go to help families cover the costs, ” Hamilton said, also noting efforts to The ways that credits can incentivize employers to support their employees ’ costs or to create on-site childcare centers, which we are seeing as well, ” Hamilton said.
“Some of the more innovative points we’ve seen have been how to handle the business type issues of child care, ” she added, describing efforts in local communities to address book and compensation costs.
“We’ve heard about a real estate investment trust, a REIT, that is purchasing facilities and making them available to proprietors and doing the upgrades to make them fit regulations, while also providing stable rents so they can continue to provide child care at a reasonable cost to families. ”
Britt said that she hopes Alabama’s tax credits will help businesses and facilities to provide affordable child care to their workers. Britt said she also hopes new legislation will help mothers, small business and rural communities attain higher involvement in the workforce. Apprenticeship programs too, she said, might provide opportunities for people to begin working as they gain credentials that make it easier to operate high-quality and successful programs.
“We want to make sure not only that the workers are paid accordingly but also that we find a way to drive costs down for parents. So most definitely will certainly take a look at that and look forward to talking to Senator Murray about it, ” Britt said.
“Putting parents back in the driver’s seat, creating a market that works. Thinking about our rural communities. A lot of times it ’s easy to think about how some of the bigger businesses can take part in this but figuring out how we bring small businesses together…is really important. ”
Since 2017, Murray has introduced the Child Care for Working Families Act. She advocated for the legislation again Wednesday.
The act as written would provide grants to communities to build the child care facilities and increase accessibility. It would balance an effort toward a living wage for child care workers, while capping an effort to make families pay no more than 7 % of their income on child care.
“ I think we have the possibility to get it passed. We will need bipartisan support in the Senate, ” Murray said.
Britt said she would take a look at the bill, but worries about making big-picture changes dependent on federal budget decisions.
Murray said she also hopes to pass legislation for veterans and active military service members to receive better, more affordable child care on bases and during medical appointments.
“ I had visited troops and heard about child care and the challenges that our men and women in uniform are facing both at home and abroad and brought that to her, ” Britt added, noting appreciation for Murray’s work on the issue.
“ I am confident that there are many places when it comes to affordability and accessibility where we overlap and I am committed to figuring out how to move forward…so that we can see if we can navigate through that to ultimately achieve what we need to, which is a better childcare community, better opportunities, more resources for people who want to re-enter the workforce, ” Britt said.
Why should you care about the child care crisis?
Panelists said that addressing the issue will improve workplaces and communities, whether or not individual voters have children.
“People walk up to me and say, ‘ I don’t have kids. Why should I pay for this? ’ My answer is pretty simple. Do you go to work every day? Do you have any income? Well, if you want your company to stay open, then you need workers there. And the less workers you have, the less productive you can be. And one of the biggest reasons we don’t have productivity today is because people can’t be in the workplace because they don’t have child care. So we will help lower costs for all Americans, ” Murray said.
“If we can be more productive, we will have a better educated workforce that can support that worker regardless of whether they have children or not. When they retire, we will have a workforce that is more innovative and creative and entrepreneurial. If we can make sure that there is childcare for those workers to be at work, which helps every single American, ” Murray said.
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