A new letter in support of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) call for a doubling child care funding is now circulating. CWLA has signed onto the appropriations request in an effort to highlight the dramatic unmet need. The funding request would increase appropriated child care funding by $2.9 billion, a doubling of current appropriations.
In 2014 Congress adopted a new reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) law for the first time since 1996. That reauthorization included a number of reforms and improvements as far as training, rates and quality care. It also protected families from having difficult disruptions of coverage that may have resulted from burdensome eligibility hurdles.
The reforms did not add any funding and as a result states are now stretched to meet all the new child care reforms drawing from the same limited child care funding to cover families, improve quality and safety and to meet some of the new requirements on continued child care coverage.
CLASP has a new analysis that indicates an increase by $2.9 billion would address the reforms included in the 2014 reauthorization. According to the analysis the increased funding would extend care to 230,000 children.
