WASHINGTON D.C.—A nationwide group of parents, child care providers, and advocates say that keeping child care investments out of the reconciliation budget will have devastating impacts across the country. Leaders of the Child Care for Every Family Network are urging the Senate to include child care investments in the reconciliation package to lower costs for families and improve working conditions for essential child care workers.

The Child Care for Every Family Network issued the following comments:

Erica Gallegos, Co-Director of the Child Care for Every Family Network:

“The Senate must do everything in their power to ensure that families, especially mothers and caregivers, have what they need to work and fully participate in the economy. Absent a robust and sustained public investment that allows states to raise compensation for providers, to build child care supply, and that ensures parents can afford the care they need, we will only see the child care crisis get worse. And we will continue to see this crisis disproportionately impact mothers and women of color. Leaving child care out of an upcoming reconciliation package is unacceptable, leaving the wrong people to pay the costs from disinvestment. The time to act is now.”

Andrea Paluso, Co-Director of the Child Care for Every Family Network:

“Families across the country are struggling with price increases on essential goods and services, and so far we have only seen every family-supportive policy previously considered by Congress be removed from consideration for investment. The good news is that our child care crisis is a problem we can solve. All it requires is political will by those with the power to make the investments that are long overdue. This is not the time to leave American children, families and caregivers behind.”

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About the Child Care for Every Family Network 

The Child Care for Every Family Network is a first-of-its-kind partnership between parents, providers, and advocates to build a transformed national-to-state system that results in universal access to equitable, accessible, high-quality, affordable, and culturally relevant child care across the U.S., that supports thriving children and families and a diverse, well-paid, and well-supported workforce.

The Network’s members include over five dozen organizations, and is led by parents, providers and people from organizations like Family Forward Oregon, Olé (NM), Parent Voices California, National Women’s Law Center, Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), Family Values @ Work, California Child Care Resource and Referral Network, DC Action, Child Care Aware, Community Change, AFL-CIO, National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), SEIU, UPLAN, and more.