Is the Economic Case for Child Care, Working?

At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, I appeared on NPR's The 1A and made the case that child care infrastructure is economic infrastructure--without it our capitalist economy cannot function. Parents can’t go to work. Without parents, workplaces cannot function, profits cannot be made, wages can’t be earned and spent. I pointed out that at that point in 2020, Congress had bailed out the airline industry in the billions of dollars with a similar argument—the industry had to survive for the sake of the economy as a whole. To that point, Delta Airlines alone had received more government spending to stay afloat than the entire child care industry had received. Relief soon came in the form of the American Rescue Plan, which gave the child care sector a badly needed lifeline. But that help is now expired, and many providers are contemplating closing their doors, even as the demand for care continues to rise.

For twenty years prior to the pandemic and in the years since, thousands of people, including parents, researchers, economists and advocates have made the case. If child care represents an opportunity worth hundreds of billions of dollars, why do so many lawmakers continue to shrug it off? For Early Learning Nation, I asked some of the smartest people I could find: Is the economic case for child care working?

The Economic Argument for Child Care Is Urgent. But Is a Child Care System Built for Maximizing Economic Returns Best for the People Involved?

Goldstein thinks that the child care movement has all the evidence and sound arguments it needs. What it lacks is the political money and the voting blocs to force policymakers to care about and act for child care. For example, Goldstein found that when it came to the 2020 Build Back Better (BBB) legislation that would have massively overhauled the U.S.’s early care and learning systems, care organizations had just “1.4 percent of the lobbying spend compared to top business groups who opposed BBB.”

Read the piece and let us know what you think! Do we need to talk more about families and less about the economy? How can the child care movement compete with the big lobbies standing against it?