Advocates Slam $0 for Child Care in Manchin Anti-Inflation Package

Advocates for children and parents on Friday highlighted what they say is a major oversight in the Inflation Reduction Act, the climate and tax bill introduced this week after months of negotiations between Sen. Joe Manchin and Democratic leaders, as the package included no funding to help shore up struggling child care facilities across the United States.

“It is a complete shame that the Senate’s Inflation Reduction Act does not include inflation-fighting funding for child care,” said Michelle Kang, CEO of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), noting that early versions of the Build Back Better Act last year raised hopes in the industry that lawmakers would provide badly needed child care emergency funds—before Manchin announced in December that he would not support the package.

The American Rescue Plan, passed in March 2021, provided a historic investment of $24 billion for the child care sector, but those funds are scheduled to expire in September 2024—leaving the industry with “a potential fiscal cliff of $48 billion,” according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

As NAEYC reported in a February 2022 study called Saved But Not Solved, 75% of child care providers say that without more federal funding, the expiration of the stabilization grants would be devastating to their programs, and one-third of early childhood educators say they are already struggling to keep their facilities open and will leave or close their programs by the end of 2022.

By leaving child care funding out of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), MomsRising CEO Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner told Forbes on Thursday, the right-wing West Virginia senator is continuing to show hostility to the needs of parents and children.

Originally published at Commondreams.org.