Federal Government Day Care Centers

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Part of the plan pushed by the Biden Administration would provide large subsidies and grants to child care centers to pay their teachers more. It would also cap the amount a family pays for child care at seven% of their income.

Whats interesting is we have many teachers in programs with the education that cant afford where they are for their own children. So oftentimes, youll see child care programs offering discounts for their own employees in order to be able to retain that staff, Allen said.

Robin Lewis was one of those teachers. Lewis teaches Pre-K at Wishview Childrens Center in Greensboro.

The price tag is so expensive, I think sometimes families are having to make those tough decisions, Lewis said.

On average, a Guilford County family could pay at least $1,000 to $1,500 per month for infant care.

The people who run the centers say the money cant come soon enough.

Child care facilities we had great relationships with two years ago are nonexistent, so we dont know how long were going to be able to sustain quality child care if we dont get the funding, Bitting said.

The measure is set to go before the House towards the end of the week.

Lets Fix The Funding Model

In the short term, advocates in the sector are also calling for two further measures. The first is clarification about which children are able to access childcare, particularly in NSW. This is so childcare providers and parents can more clearly understand their obligations.

The second is a vaccination program that enables childcare workers to access vaccines as essential workers.

In the long term, Australia may need to review how it approaches childcare to ensure a more resilient system less susceptible to external shocks.

Australias childcare system is a market-based subsidy model. This is different from other education or health services, which are often directly run or funded by governments.

Mostly non-government providers operate in the sector. Providers choose where to operate and set their own fees.

Australia applies similar types of economic principles to childcare that it does industries such as aviation. Like an airline seat, payment is based entirely on use. Competition between providers on services and fees is encouraged.

Like the airline industry, the system is also prone to periodic collapse. In 2008, Australias largest provider of childcare services, ABC Learning, folded leaving the childcare arrangements for more than 110,000 children in the balance.

Good Childcare Is Unaffordable

Center-based childcare is very expensive, both in absolute terms and relative to family income. One estimate pegs the average weekly cost of full-time daycare at $196 per child, or about $10,000 per year.2 Other estimates are higher.3 Costs vary substantially by geographical locale, age of the child, and form of childcare. For example, full-time center-based care for one infant or toddler ranges from about $5,000 a year in Mississippi to over $22,000 a year in Washington, D.C.4 Costs for infants and toddlers are thousands of dollars higher per year than costs for preschoolers.

These costs are very high relative to family income.5 Accredited, center-based childcare for a dual-earner family with two young children and with earnings at 150 percent of the average full-time workers wage would cost that family, on average, 29 percent of their take-home pay. A poor single parent earning 50 percent of the national average wage would have to spend 52 percent of her income for the same services. The U.S. ranks dead last among developed nations on this measure of affordability, as illustrated in the subsequent figure for a single parent earning half the average wage.6

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Child Care And Development Block Grant

The U.S. Department of Education of Health and Human Services administer funds to states to help low-income families with child care services who work, train for work, or attend school. If your child care center is eligible to receive federal funds, then you may be able to benefit from this particular grant.

Child And Adult Care Food Program

The aim of the child and adult care food program is to maintain food service programs for children and the elderly. Adult daycare facilities, after school children’s programs, and shelters, are also welcome to apply. Eligible institutions must provide non-residential daycare services. Non-federal entities that expend more than $500,000 are subject to a program specific audit.

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The Program: Childcare And Education Savings Accounts

The politics of increased federal funding for childcare depend not only on data Ive presented above on need and the availability of budget offsets from the charitable deduction, but also on how an increased subsidy would be delivered to families. Further, the outlines of a delivery vehicle are required in order to estimate costs. There are several ways that a federal subsidy for childcare might be accomplished. Three broad categories are: tax credits, grants to states, and savings accounts.

The tax vehicle would provide for increased deductibility or credits for childcare expenses, including perhaps refundable tax credits such that a family that has accrued childcare expenses but whose taxes would be reduced below zero with a childcare credit would receive a refund for the difference. There are several problems with a tax credit vehicle, as I describe subsequently. A critical one is that it delivers benefits to parents once a year in connection with a tax return whereas the costs for childcare are due and payable when they are being received. The childcare provider needs to be paid at the end of the week or beginning of the month. A tax credit the parent receives in April is mistimed for families that live from paycheck to paycheck.

Early Learning Intensive Support Program

Saskatchewan has supported inclusive early learning and child care opportunities for young children requiring intensive supports by creating Early Learning Intensive Support Program. ELIS builds on the strength of existing Prekindergarten programs by expanding access for children who require a significant level of support.

In April 2018, programs were developed with the four school divisions in Regina and Saskatoon to hire additional staff and provide the supports needed to allow these children to benefit from the Prekindergarten early learning environment. Additional expansions occurred in 2019 and 2020 to increase access throughout Saskatchewan.

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Best Practices And Resources

As the leading federal agency overseeing child care facilities for federal employees, GSA has become an expert in providing resources to ensure quality programs, including start-up materials, guidance on center designs, health and safety standards, and program reviews.

The shortcut to this page is www.gsa.gov/childcare.

The History Of Child Care In The Us

by Sonya Michel, Ph.D., University of Maryland

In the United States today, most mothers of preschool and school age children are employed outside the home. American mothers have invented many ways to care for their children while they work. Native Americans strapped newborns to cradle boards or carried them in woven slings Colonial women placed small children in standing stools or go-gins to prevent them from falling into the fireplace. Pioneers on the Midwestern plains laid infants in wooden boxes fastened to the beams of their plows. Southern dirt farmers tethered their runabouts to pegs driven into the soil at the edge of their fields. White southern planters wives watched African American boys and girls playing in the kitchen yard while their mothers toiled in the cotton fields. African American mothers sang white babies to sleep while their own little ones comforted themselves. Migrant laborers shaded infants in baby tents set in the midst of beet fields. Cannery workers put children to work beside them stringing beans and shelling peas. Shellfish processors sent toddlers to play on the docks, warning them not to go near the water.

Mothers have left babies dozing in carriages parked outside movie palaces, at department store day nurseries, and parking services in bowling alleys and shopping malls. Some mothers have placed their children in the care of others and never come back.

The Beginnings of Child Care Reform

The U.S. Childrens Bureau

After World War II

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The Math On Federal Funding Of Childcare And Education Savings Accounts

Two questions are paramount in addressing the budget consequences of federal spending for childcare through CESAs:

• How much federal funding is needed to make childcare affordable?
• How much of the charitable deduction would have to be redirected to pay for affordable childcare?

Answers to these questions depend on both facts, e.g., how much does the federal government currently spend on childcare, and assumptions, e.g., the number of families and children who would be covered and the amount of subsidy they would receive.

Costs

There are roughly four million children born each year in the U.S., of which about 23 percent live in poverty and another 20 percent who are in households that are between the federal poverty line and 200 percent of that level.31 Thus, at any one time, there are about 3.6 million children under the age of five living in poverty and another 3.2 million between the poverty line and 200 percent of poverty.

Assume that the federal government makes a contribution of these full amounts annually to the CESA of a child in a family at or below the poverty line based on the childs age . Assume that the contribution is 75 percent of these amounts for a child in a family between the poverty line and 200 percent of poverty.

Revenue

What Does This Package Mean For Providers

Around 160 childcare centres have reportedly closed nationally due to the immediate risk of COVID transmission.

In Victoria, childcare and preschools are open to children who have at least one parent or guardian with a valid authorised worker permit, working either at home or on site, and who cant make alternative supervision arrangements.

In NSW, parents and families are strongly encouraged to keep their children at home.

Australias childcare is provided by a mixture of for-profit and not-for-profit services who usually charge on a per hour or daily basis.

The federal government provides a subsidy, paid directly to early childhood services, who then pass it on to families as a fee reduction.

The amount of the subsidy, and the amount parents pay out-of-pocket, depends on family income and the fee childcare providers charge.

Normally, childcare providers must charge a gap fee to receive the federal government subsidy.

In 2020, during the first wave of the pandemic, the federal government implemented a free childcare package.

Effectively, this meant the federal government continued to pay childcare providers the subsidies they normally received, as well as cover parents out-of-pocket costs.

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However, the federal government was not covering the out-of-pocket costs of parents. Without fees collected from families, childcare providers were suffering.

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The Dream Of National Child Care: A History

Prime minister Paul Martin looks to Conservative leader Stephen Harper at a 2005 federal election debate.

Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press

Past governments, both Liberal and Progressive Conservative, have tried over the decades to introduce some form of national child care, but generally theyve foundered at election time. In 2005, for instance, the Paul Martin Liberals tried to set up a national child-care program worth $5-billion over five years, but then Stephen Harpers Conservatives unseated them, cancelled bilateral deals with the provinces and set up the Universal Canada Child Benefit instead.

The UCCB gave families $100 a month per child, but in the form of taxable payments. The Trudeau Liberals came to power promising a new, tax-free payment called the Canada Child Benefit whose size would depend on income: As of last summer, the benefits could be up to $6,765 per child under age 6, or up to $5,708 for children aged 6 to 17.

Federal Government Grants For Child Day Care Centers

There are many grants opportunities for individuals, public and private non-profit organizations, schools, and child care centers. It’s essential that you comply with federal/state licensing and approval requirements to increase your chances of landing one of these grants. The government reserves funds for child care initiatives that are geared to help improve the livelihood of children, especially those from low-income families. Child care centers play a crucial role in the development of our little ones. Many grants are available to help improve the quality of day care and make it more feasible for all families to reap the benefits.

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The Child And Adult Food Program

The USDA manages the Child and Adult Food Program by providing grants to states. It is administered in most states by its designated educational agency. In others, it is run by the state’s department of health or social services department. The program serves delicious and nutritious meals to eligible children attending child care centers, after school programs, family home day cares, and adults enrolled in adult daycare centers. Public and private non-profits, Head Start programs, and other educational institutions are eligible for grant assistance if they are licensed and approved to provide daycare services. Child care centers can receive cash money back for meals served to children that meet federal nutrition guidelines.

More Spending On Childcare Is Unlikely To Pay For Itself

I and others have written about the empirically shaky nature of these rosy investment projections.16 We point out that the studies on which they are based are of a couple of small intensive programs from a half century ago that bear little resemblance to present daycare and early education programs, some of which have little in the way of explicit educational goals. Studies of modern, scaled-up programs that intend to impact long-term child development find, unlike the studies of small hothouse programs from the last century, that improvements in childrens measurable skills and dispositions found at the end of participation in such programs usually fade away entirely by the time children are in the first few grades of elementary school.17 There are also findings of null or negative impacts of childcare. For example, studies of the universal childcare program in Quebec, Canada have found that its introduction generated a very large increase in the use of childcare as parents who would otherwise have cared for their children at home took advantage of the free service. But at the same time, outcomes for children and mothers deteriorated.18

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Training And Equipment Grants

Funding has been provided to enhance the quality of early learning and child care experiences for children in licensed child care by providing training for early learning and child care providers, and grants for Play and Exploration and Active Play. This investment enhances the capacity of the child care sector to provide rich, play-based early learning environments for children.

Child Care And Development Fund

The Administration for Children and Families, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, heads up the Child Care and Development Fund that offered $7 billion to states, tribes and local governments in 2009 for the goal of providing affordable childcare throughout the country. The CCDF provides government subsidies to families who meet certain requirements through vouchers or contracts with eligible childcare providers. Providers who receive funds must meet basic health and safety requirements to ensure that children will be safe and healthy.

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Who’s Responsible For Child Care

The provinces and territories are responsible for most aspects of child care in Canada .

Parents have the main responsibility.

Unlike public education, access to child care is not considered a right for families and childrenits a private family responsibility. Generally, parents trying to find and pay for child care are more-or-less on their own.

Each province/territory has a program of regulated child care with its own Act and legislated requirementsregulations that cover standards, licensing and monitoring. Each also has its own funding arrangements, and provides a number of child care options: centre-based full-day child care, regulated family child care, school-aged child care and , nursery schools or preschools.

There is no national program or policy for child care or early childhood education. The federal government plays only a limited role in child care outside some specific programs for Aboriginal, military and newcomer families.

Federal Workplace Child Care

Federal agencies have the authority to establish workplace child care centers for federal families by donating space in their buildings for that use. At least 50 percent of the children enrolled in a child care center must be children of federal employees. Remaining available slots may be open to the general public.

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Paid Child Care For Working Mothers All It Took Was A World War

When the men came home, the programs went away.

Mrs. J.E. Schroeder leaving her 5-year-old son Bryan at a nursery school for the children of workers contributing to the war effort. February 1943.Credit…Library of Congress

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I am typing this from inside an indoor playground in Portland. We are new to town, its the tail end of summer and my 4-year-old daughter cant start her new preschool until next week. Its also raining, and our house is full of boxes. We took a bus here and paid $11 to enter, and I am now in the awkward semiconscious state of the working parent without child care: looking down to try and remember what I wanted to write looking up to determine whether the piercing scream is my child, or just my childs fault. I will not make my deadline, but my daughter will be spared a gloomy afternoon inside the house, and I will be spared the guilt of letting her watch TV all day while I try to earn money.

The mothers of these children were welders, clerks, timekeepers and secretaries many of whom had been recently mobilized for the workforce. The nurseries a partnership between the federal government and the Kaiser Company were open seven days a week, 12 months a year. There was an infirmary for sick children and food was provided. There was even a cafeteria where women could pick up hot meals to take home after work.