For the past year, Minnesota Senator Tina Smith alongside Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has fought to bring economic relief to child care providers. The pandemic has shown us just how crucial affordable, accessible child care is. As schools shut down and students returned home, essential workers still had to report to work; and quality child care was a part of keeping their children cared for and safe.
Even before the pandemic, affordable child care was scarce across Minnesota and the country. As an article from MinnPost explained, “The economics of the industry cause providers to get paid very little while tuition costs for families can be enormous.” In April of 2020, Smith and Warren began their fight for child care bailout.
In the 2020 fiscal year, the federal government gave $8.7 billion to states, territories and tribes for the Child Care and Development Block Grant. Through Smith and Warren’s dedication, the new stimulus package will give roughly $15 billion more to that program, plus another $24 billion for child care “stabilization funding” and another $1 billion for the Head Start program.
Of the newly available funds through the American Rescue Plan, roughly $550 million of that will go to Minnesota child care. “This is going to make a huge difference in terms of staunching the departure of child care centers and providers from the field,” Smith said in an interview. “Giving us time to figure out what we need to do long-term to make sure that we have a functioning child care system for moms and dads and kids.”