Pandemic broke child care in Michigan and elsewhere. Here's how Dems want to fix it

Oct. 4—Washington — Democrats in Congress are proposing to overhaul how the United States finances child care so that, like K-12 education, it's backed by taxpayers rather than families.

The impetus for this latest push is the pandemic, which forced parents of young children — many of them women — to stay home or cut their hours when schools and day cares closed last year, exposing how vital child care is to a healthy economy.

A Treasury Department report released last month said the child care industry is basically in a state of market failure, calling the economics of the industry "untenable." A long-running problem is that the cost of quality child care is greater than what many parents can afford.

"It was fractured before, and the pandemic put the weight on it and broke it apart," said Gina Adams, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute who studies child care. "I don't know what kind of little bits and pieces of glue here and there could work without us really thinking systematically about how do we fix it."

About 97% of licensed child care centers have now reopened in Michigan, according to data from the Michigan nonprofit Great Start to Quality, but experts and providers say many aren't operating at pre-pandemic capacity.

Often, they're serving fewer children to limit exposure to COVID-19, since most of their young charges can't be vaccinated yet. Or they can't find qualified staff to hire, as teachers depart for higher pay in retail, restaurants or K-12 classrooms.

"We have families who we would be happy to enroll today if we could. We have a slot for them but we don't have the staff," said Joanna Cline, senior vice president at the Learning Care Group in Novi, the second-largest for-profit child care provider in North America with about 1,000 centers and preschools operating in 38 states and D.C.

"It's a consistent story for the industry as a whole."

After losing longtime staff during the pandemic, Susan Graf, director of quality and care at Babes in Toyland in Troy, raised wages to $15 an hour to attract applicants, she said.

"I had to or I wouldn't be competitive. There were several centers in the area closing because the staff weren't there," said Graf, whose center has seen a boom in demand and has enrolled families to begin attending as far out as September.

As Democrats on Capitol Hill negotiate their $3.5 trillion social policy and climate package, advocates see a historic opportunity to craft a child care system for ages 0 to 5 years that's affordable and accessible to all, similar to other wealthy countries where child care is viewed and funded like a public good.

Democrats hope to pass the package with a simple majority using a process known as reconciliation that allows them to avoid the 60-vote hurdle required to advance most Senate legislation.

"We designed a system that isn't stable, but it doesn't have to be that way," said activist Danielle Atkinson of Royal Oak, who focuses on issues of financial stability for moms as the founder and director of the group Mothering Justice.

"We can invest in a system that gives parents choice, that's affordable and that's paying workers a living wage."

Capping costs

The plan that's being considered in Congress would cap child care costs at 7% of household earnings for most families, with the rest covered by government subsidies. The average family with at least one child under age 5 now pays about 13% of family income for child care, according to the Treasury report.

The proposal would also start a national, free pre-K program for 3- and 4-year-olds and help states boost child care workers' pay to a "living wage," rather than a median of $11.65 an hour nationally and $11.13 an hour in Michigan, according to the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley.

Taken together, the universal preschool and child care subsidy provisions are projected to cost $450 billion over 10 years.

"We've documented (these problems) in different ways for decades, but just getting a willingness to put in the resources to build the comprehensive stable system hasn't been there," said Christina Weiland, an associate professor at the University of Michigan'sSchool of Education.

"It would be a real game-changer for kids, families and teachers, because it would allow us to have the elements in place to build a high-quality system."

Detroiter and mom of seven India Beckum, 33, said there are days she can't go into work for her shift as a home health aide because she has no child care for her three youngest children, ages 4, 2 and 1.

She can't afford to place them in a child care center, so she often leaves her kids with their grandmother or other family members. What she makes working part-time goes to pay for those babysitters and household bills, she said.

"The cost of living is going up," she said. "It's really hard to be a single mother. It's stressful."

Child care costs in many states rival that of in-state tuition at a public college. The average annual cost of infant care in Michigan is $10,861, or $905 a month, and care for a 4-year-old is $8,890 annually, or $741 a month, according to research by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat from Holly, noted that's not far off a year's tuition at Oakland University in her district, which runs from $12,500 to $13,000.

"The price is prohibitive for a ton of families. I'm interested in that because I think it's a women's issue, a kids issue, but it's also an economic issue," Slotkin said.

"The No. 1 thing I hear from my business owners is they can't find anyone to work," she added. "Imagine if we unleash the power of all these women who want to be in the workplace but don't feel like they can justify working when the price of child care is just eating up their entire salary."

'Had to pay the bills'

Meghan Scullion, 38, is a restaurant manager and single mom with four kids ages 4-11. She said she struggled to pay for child care while making $14 an hour at a Pizza Hut in Jackson, even with a state-administered child care subsidy of $1.40 per child per hour.

The one 24-hour center nearby cost her more out of pocket than she was making per hour, so she resorted to leaving her 11-year-old in charge of the other kids at home.

"I wasn't comfortable with it, but I had to work," she said. "I had to pay the bills."

Scullion has since moved in with her mother, who watches the kids while Scullion manages a Denny's in East Lansing, she said.

The Treasury Department noted that fewer than 20% of children eligible for one of the largest federal child care assistance programs for low-income families actually get the subsidies.

The proposal from House Democrats would establish a sliding fee scale so that that families earning below 75% of their state's median income would receive subsidies that essentially cover all child care costs for kids younger than age 5. At the high end, families earning up to 200% of their state's median income would have their costs capped at 7% of their income.

Under that structure, with Michigan's median household income at $57,144, families earning less than $114,288 would not pay more than 7% of their income on child care. Michigan households bringing in less than $42,858 a year would pay nothing toward child care costs.

As the House Education and Labor Committee debated the language last month, Democrats voted to eliminate the cap at 200% of state median income and apply the benefit to all families. The push came from a coalition of progressive lawmakers and those representing so-called "frontline" districts in the suburbs, said U.S. Rep. Andy Levin of Bloomfield Township, who serves on the panel.

"We have to have universal child care and pre-K if we're going to have the most highly functioning economy," the Democrat said. "You don't even have to think about it in terms of justice or feminism. If you want the economy running on all cylinders, you need women in the workforce, to the extent they want to be."

Negotiations were still ongoing between the House, Senate and White House last week, and lawmakers said it's unclear whether the child care and preschool provisions will remain in the package and at what funding level, among other details.

Republicans in committee objected to the proposals. U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Tipton, was among the GOP members who voted against the universal child care subsidy in committee.

"Making sure working families have access to affordable child care is increasingly important in today's economy. However, this amendment drops any pretense of fiscal responsibility by allowing child care subsidies for the super wealthy who do not need them," Walberg said in a statement.

"America is already on an unsustainable fiscal path, and it simply makes no sense to have taxpayers foot the bill for high-income households."

U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, the top Republican on the Education and Labor panel, said the legislation would create two "giant" child care initiatives that would essentially be run by federal bureaucrats.

"We should be focused on ensuring hardworking taxpayers can find the best care for their children, rather than blindly throwing money at the problem and calling it a solution," she added.

If the child care and preschool measures don't make it into the final package, Rep. Brenda Lawrence, D-Southfield, "absolutely" wants Congress to tackle the subject in standalone legislation, she said.

Lawrence, who co-chairs the Women's Caucus, stressed the matter is one of racial equity, with child care least affordable to many families of color.

"We make a statement as a country when we take care of our most vulnerable," she said.

UM's Weiland said it's not the first time that Congress has tried something like this, and the last time it failed.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon vetoed a bill that would have established a comprehensive system of child care, disparaging the legislation as "fiscal irresponsibility, administrative unworkability and family-weakening implications," according to a New York Times report at the time.

"Fifty years ago, we almost had this, and we lost that opportunity. We've paid for that veto ever since in the form of this tough landscape to navigate for kids and families and teachers," Weiland said.

"So this is really a moment, and we'll see where we go this time."

mburke@detroitnews.com

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