The COVID-19 pandemic has put child care access and affordability front and center. Working parents and early childhood educators have always known how important child care is, but now the need to shore up and transform our early childhood education system is front page news. On Mother’s Day weekend, an op-ed in Raleigh’s
News & Observer argued persuasively that if our state really wants to recognize and support North Carolina moms, we need to expand access to child care subsidies.
A look at the data shows just how far North Carolina has to go in order to support eligible families with young children. The average annual cost of care for an infant attending a child care center in the state is $9,650, over $600 more than the current in-state tuition at the University of North Carolina. That’s more than one-third of the state median income for a single mother.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) speaks Monday outside Here We Grow Child Care Center in Cortland. Schumer visited Cortland to discuss the $1.8 billion New York will get for child-care centers as part of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. Photo: Colin Spencer / Cortland Standard
May 05, 2021
Cortland Standard
To understand the importance of child care in a community, one could ask a parent, or perhaps a teacher. But perhaps one should ask an employer, too.
“The lack of affordable child care in our community has a direct and negative impact on the ability of our workforce to obtain and keep jobs,” Ames Linen President Johanna Ames wrote Monday in a letter read to Sen. Chuck Schumer in Cortland. “To advance and grow with a company, one must be consistently present. Many workers worry about availability of safe, reliable childcare and ultimately choose to exit the workforce because they could not obtain such care.”
Christopher Robbins
U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) appeared at a Cortland day center to announce more than $1.8 billion from the America Rescue Plan would be coming to New York with a chunk to Central New York to help meet continuing child care needs.
Schumer says the funds will come in the form of the Childcare Stabilization Fund and the Child Care Development Block Grant.
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The Stabilization Fund will help qualified child care providers with operating expenses and other costs including personnel, sanitation, personal protective equipment and training.
The Block Grant will allow New York to make awards to providers based on enrollment rather than attendance and can include subsidies to families, including essential workers.
Credit: Lawrence Jackson/Official White House Photo
Vice President Kamala Harris and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona visit a classroom on March 26, 2021, at the West Haven Child Development Center in West Haven Connecticut.
Credit: Lawrence Jackson/Official White House Photo
Vice President Kamala Harris and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona visit a classroom on March 26, 2021, at the West Haven Child Development Center in West Haven Connecticut.
April 28, 2021
President Joe Biden’s relief plan for families, which he rolled out in Wednesday’s address to a joint session of Congress, may well be a transformative move for children, early childhood advocates say, taking a historic step toward establishing a seamless system of early education and care.