Our country’s existing and long-term child care crisis—inequitable access for communities of color, poverty-level wages for early educators, and unaffordable care for far too many families— has been exacerbated by the devastating, inequitable impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, which has pushed the child care and early learning sector to the brink of collapse. The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 provides $10 billion in much-needed direct pandemicrelated relief for the child care sector. These funds can be used to support providers facing reduced enrollment and increased costs of serving children safely, reduce family co-payments, pay staff salaries, provide care for the children of essential workers regardless of income, support costs related to reopening, and more. The legislation encourages lead agencies to delink provider payments from attendance.

This new infusion of federal dollars comes on top of the $3.5 billion of much-needed relief for child care provided by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) Act in the spring. This additional funding, while an important and long-overdue down payment to support the fragile child care sector, still falls far short of the more than $50 billion the sector needs to survive the pandemic. 1 Without this additional support, our nation runs the risk of exacerbating the child care crisis that existed long before the pandemic, making it harder for parents to work, leaving children without critical supports for their health and wellbeing, and jeopardizing the livelihoods of early childhood educators—disproportionately women of color and immigrant women.

For questions, please contact Katherine Gallagher Robbins at kgallagherrobbins[at]clasp[dot]org.

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