U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) recently proposed a bill that would provide assistance for America’s childcare providers, enabling them to continue offering critical, affordable services for working parents during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Unfortunately, this pandemic has only made our childcare crisis worse,” Sen. Ernst said on Tuesday. “In addition to the support we helped secure in the CARES Act, this new proposal will help relieve anxiety for families by ensuring our kids are in safe environments and stabilizing the childcare sector as a whole.”
Sen. Ernst joined U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), chairman of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, to introduce the Back to Work Child Care Grants Act of 2020.
According to a bill summary provided by Sen. Ernst’s staff, the Bipartisan Policy Center reported that 60 percent of childcare centers had closed and one-third of the childcare workforce had lost jobs at the height of the COVID-19 outbreak.
And when these childcare centers were surveyed by the National Association for the Education of Young Children at the beginning of March, nearly half of the providers reported that they could not survive a closure of more than two weeks without financial support, according to the summary.
Sen. Ernst’s proposal would provide nine months of financial assistance for childcare providers to open and stay open; require states to design state-specific plans to support childcare centers, operators and providers; and hasten fund disbursement by reducing administrative red tape, the bill summary says.
“Iowa families depend on the survival of our existing child care providers,” said Sen. Ernst. “In my conversations with our moms and dads and providers across the state, I’ve heard consistently — even before COVID-19 — about the struggle to find quality, affordable childcare, and I’ve worked to fix that.”
If enacted, the bill also would require all providers receiving federal assistance to follow all state and local health and safety guidelines, and would require states to ensure a diverse field of childcare options for parents, including center-based, family childcare and faith-based options, according to the bill summary.
The bill has garnered support from First Five Years Fund Executive Director Sarah Rittling; Stephanie Sturdevant-Ward, regional vice president for KinderCare Education; and Michele Stockwell, executive director of the Bipartisan Policy Center Action.