of child care centers are shut down entirely. These businesses operate on thin margins, relying primarily on tuition from parents.There is this historic, long-standing underfunding that is a byproduct of sexism, a byproduct of racism. And now we are having to convince people that not only it was never enough but now we need so much more, and we need it fast.
Advocates point out that child care needs a bailout as much as, if not more than, say, the airline industry. “We aren’t balking at giving the airlines a bailout or any other companies; we shouldn’t be balking at giving child care a bailout,” Hamm said. As the focus in the U.S. turns to getting people back to work, there’s been a wide recognition it would be“I was completely surprised,” said Linda Smith, director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s early childhood development initiative. “We expected there would be more consideration for this whole issue given the complexity of family’s lives and going back to work.”
The whole industry is subsidized — not by government funds, really, but by the cheap labor these women provide. Themany women earn the minimum wage or close to it, including some women with decades of experience.And for each one woman working as a caregiver, several more women — mothers — depend on her. Mothers around the country can’t go back to work if their child care center shutters.
No one is particularly worried that their local elementary or high school is going to vanish when the pandemic recedes. State and local taxes fund schools — and there’s federal funding, too. In fact, there is close to $60 billion for K-12 schools in the HEROES Act. Some child care providers have been able to get money through the Payment Protection Act, a small business loan program Congress established in March. Businesses get loans and don’t have to pay them back if they keep a certain percentage of employees on the payroll.