| Hi Rulers! Happy Friday! Was anyone else surprised to see a certain guest star on SNL this week? Let's get into it: The federal funds for child care that states have grown to rely on since the pandemic are drying up — and a staunchly divided Congress has not been able to to prop up child care as the funding wanes. Biden has asked Congress for $16 billion in supplemental emergency child care funding — but it faces steep odds given the GOP’s House majority. So now, some Governors and state legislatures are dipping into their coffers to cover some of the difference. Anna Lovejoy, director of early childhood policy at the Center for American Progress, says women Governors – especially Democrats — are the ones to watch. “We’ve started to track the State of the State addresses, and we've seen a number of women governors really taking the lead on this,” she tells Women Rule. She names Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly as examples. “Those are the ones to keep an eye on, because they're really putting it out there that this is a priority for their administrations, and they're trying to put their money where their mouth is,” Lovejoy says. It’s a trend that’s showing up in their fiscal 2025 budget proposals. In Massachusetts, Healey announced plans to pursue about $93 million in new child care spending, and she’s requesting an additional $475 million to extend pandemic-era grants to support early education providers. Hobbs proposed $100 million for Arizona’s Child Care Assistance program. Whitmer, during her State of the State, announced that she was bumping up the timeline for her plan to provide free preschool for all four-year-olds, from 2026 to the end of 2024. Hochul’s proposal maintains last year's $7 billion commitment to child care over four years and $1.8 billion in subsidized care. And Kelly’s budget proposes $56 million to expand child care slots and support the child care workforce, which would be the largest single-year investment in early childhood care and education in the state, and recently also announced plans to create 458 new child care slots. Some red states, upped their investments, too. In Kentucky, the 2025 House budget increases state spending on child care by $52 million. The funding is, at least in part, an effort to slow the effects of the decline in federal funding from the American Rescue Plan. Last September, the $24 billion of child care stabilization funds originally allocated in the plan expired, and the dwindling Child Care Development Fund dollars will expire at the end of September 2024. But Julie Kashen, director for women's economic justice at The Century Foundation, says that the pandemic funding opened states’ eyes to what more child care money could mean for their economies and job markets. “The American rescue plan dollars actually allowed every state to expand, innovate and improve child care in a way I've never I have not seen before,” Kashen says. “Their job markets and their employers appreciated it because employers hire parents and the parents need child care. So that made a difference and helped states to see that this was a worthwhile investment.” But not all states were on board with making that investment. And soon child care centers will feel the pain — especially in states that didn’t put aside extra funding for child care — Kashen says. Already, child care is getting more expensive, which Kashen says is the first thing that happens when federal funding drops off. Next, she says, child care providers and workers will start leaving the industry, worsening the industry’s significant staffing shortages. “People can just make more money serving coffee or selling appliances,” Kashen says. “There’s just more money to be had in other sectors.” Finally, Kashen expects to see closures of child care programs across the country — something that she’s already seen in some states. “We've already heard that 168 programs in Wisconsin have closed,” she said. Kyra Weber, the National Women’s Law Center’s senior state policy and outreach manager on the child care and early learning team, says that states will struggle — even those that have allocated more money than usual to fund child care. The influx of cash from the states will make a dent, she says, but it’s not enough to compensate for the decrease in the federal funding. “Long-term, significant federal investment is essential,” Weber says.
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