U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is calling on Congress to urgently pass new funding for national child care and early education.
According to Warren, who has held her seat in Congress since 2013, “if Congressional Republicans get their way” federal child care funding will “fall off a cliff.”
If federal child care funding does falls off the proverbial cliff, Warren states that 3.2 million children will lose their child care spots, and child care centers across the country will close.
Warren says: “That’s going to have a terrible economic consequence. That’s a lot of mommies and daddies who can’t go to work, who can’t work a full shift because they can’t get adequate child care.”
Warren admits emergency funding is a short term fix. “In the long term, America needs to make an investment in child care,” she says. (In February, Warren introduced the Child Care for Every Community Act and, with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) in June introduced the Building Childcare for a Better Future Act.)
In an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN, Warren claims that among the world’s 37 richest nations, the U.S. is number 33 when it comes to investing in national child care. Warren says: “Mexico spends more per child — they spend more on their children than the U.S.”
Warren doesn’t specify her data source, but a 2021 UNICEF study ranking “high-income countries based on their national childcare and parental leave policies” placed the U.S. 40th overall, with Mexico at #30.
[NOTE: In January 2023, “the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, announced the award of nearly $300 million in Preschool Development Grants Birth through Five (PDG B-5) to 42 states, providing critical resources to support the early care and education system that families rely on.”]
Note: Warren, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, launched her Senate re-election campaign in May 2023. See video below.
According to Politico, so far Senator Warren has the support of Gov. Maura Healey, Sen. Ed Markey, Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. “And she’s got $3.3 million in the bank.”
