In Our View: Child care challenges finally getting attention

As any parent who has young children can attest, the chore of finding available and affordable child care can lead to as many sleepless nights as a colicky baby. Adequate care can be difficult to find, and the costs can be an albatross on a family’s finances.

Therefore, it is encouraging that the issue is receiving much-needed attention in Congress.

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, joined Minnesota Democrat Collin Peterson last week in introducing the Child Care Workforce and Facilities Act (H.R. 1488). Meanwhile, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., has revived the Child Care for Working Families Act, which she introduced last year (S. 1806), and Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, a senator from Massachusetts, has made universal child care a platform of her campaign.

The need for such attention is clear. Child care costs have increased by 25 percent over the past decade, creating an impediment to employment for many parents. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in 2016 as many as 58,000 parents in Washington — and about 2 million nationally — quit a job, declined an offer or changed their work hours to adjust around child care needs.

In many states, including Washington, daylong care costs more than tuition to a four-year state university, and advocacy group ChildCare Aware of Washington reports that the state is among the five most expensive for child care.

These issues could have been addressed in 1971, when Congress passed the Comprehensive Child Development Act. But the legislation was vetoed by President Richard Nixon, and the nation’s child care system has languished behind those in other developed nations ever since.

The varying proposals in Congress will provide an impetus for robust discussion. Herrera Beutler’s bill would provide grants for states to help with training and retention of child care workers while also constructing facilities in underserved areas. The difficulty is that seemingly every area is underserved; a 2017 report in The Columbian found that nearly 30,000 children younger than 5 were competing for 6,229 slots in licensed child care facilities in Clark County. “As the demand for child care continues to increase across Southwest Washington, the number of quality care providers has dwindled, setting up a crisis for working families who are struggling to find and afford care for their kids,” Herrera Beutler wrote in a press release.

Murray’s proposal, which has 33 co-sponsors in the Senate along with 140 for the House version of the bill, would dictate that no family earning less than 150 percent of a state’s median income would pay more than 7 percent of that income for child care. Families earning more would pay on a sliding scale. The bill also would support access to quality preschool programs for all 3- and 4-year-olds and assure a living wage for child care providers.

Warren’s proposal would subsidize universal child care through a newly imposed wealth tax. She also intends to pay child care workers on par with public school teachers.

The details and the efficacy of each plan remain to be hashed out in Congress. For now, the important thing is that an issue of vital importance to working families is finally drawing the attention it has long deserved.

Developing a more effective system for child care can improve early education and ease a financial burden for millions of Americans. It might also allow them to sleep a little better at night.