Sen. Blumenthal and day care providers make plea for massive investment in child care within the budget reconciliation bill

Daycare providers and Sen. Richard Blumenthal urged Congress on Monday morning to include $400 billion for affordable child care in the massive $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill currently before Congress.

“The pandemic has really exaggerated what already exists, which is that we have a broken system,” said Merrill Gay, executive director of the Early Childhood Alliance. “That’s why it is so critical right now that Congress is considering a budget reconciliation bill that will potentially … [have] enough money to make it possible for the government to step in and fix this problem.”

Blumenthal said child care remains unaffordable, despite its importance to families across the state.

“The present system is unsustainable,” he said at the Capitol Child Development Center in Hartford. “Parents simply can’t pay an average of $10,000 per child per year, year after year.”

Connecticut residents are reentering the workforce after the pandemic has caused businesses to shut down and unemployment rates to rise to historic highs. However, it can be difficult for guardians and caretakers to return to work when day care costs can surpass monthly mortgage payments or rent for families, according to a press release.

“There are too many parts of our state and our nation that have no facilities like this one in Connecticut. There are too many child care deserts and this oasis has to be made the norm,” Blumenthal said. “We have to invest so that every community has access to quality child care. And it’s no longer a luxury or an option, it’s a necessity.”

Another challenge is that 78% of child care workers and centers identified low wages as the main challenge they face and 81% said it’s the reason they left the industry, according to a study by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). The study also shows that, as a result, four out of every five child care centers are facing a staffing shortage.

“What we have is a set of conditions that make it so that child care providers are earning very low wages and that means every child care program is struggling to get staffed,” Gay said. “This center has a waiting list and an empty classroom because they don’t have staff to staff.”

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