$50M Push to Make Child Care Top Issue 03/17 06:17

   

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- An advocacy group hoping to expand support for child and 
elder care plans to spend $50 million to back Democrats in congressional races, 
tying the costs of caregiving to the nation's affordability debate.

   The Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy, created a decade ago, aims to 
make caregiver issues more salient in elections. The announcement comes as the 
cost of child care continues to rise and as waiting lists for federal child 
care subsidies, which support working families in poverty, continue to grow.

   Sondra Goldschein, executive director of the campaign and its political 
action committee, said child care and elder care are important to the 
affordability conversation, especially as child care costs exceed what families 
pay for housing. Then there is the pressure on the "sandwich generation," 
composed of middle-aged people who are caring simultaneously for their own 
children and parents.

   "When child care can cost more than your rent or a mortgage, or you have to 
sacrifice a paycheck in order to be able to take care of a loved one," that can 
motivate how people vote, said Goldschein. "Each election cycle, we see 
candidates recognizing that more and more."

   She hopes the message will resonate as families face a slew of rising costs, 
including climbing gas prices driven by a war in the Middle East that is 
unpopular with many voters.

   The campaign plans to pour support for Democrats into Senate races in North 
Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Maine and Ohio and into House races in Iowa and 
Pennsylvania. It is also slated to dispatch volunteers to talk with voters 
about caregiving.

   The National Republican Congressional Committee did not immediately respond 
to a request for comment.

   Republicans have begun to back child care as an issue crucial to growing the 
workforce, but their proposals tend to be less dramatic than those offered by 
Democrats. Last year, through President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill, 
Republicans made an estimated 4 million more families eligible for a child care 
tax credit. The law also increased child care aid for military families and tax 
credits for employers who provide child care to their workers.

   Before 2020, many candidates rarely spoke about child care. But the pandemic 
laid bare the child care industry's precarity and necessity. Preschools and 
child care centers were pressed to stay open so parents in frontline jobs -- 
such as those in health care -- could return to work.

   Then-President Joe Biden successfully persuaded Congress in 2021 to pass $39 
billion in aid for child care, allowing states to offer support to more 
families and subsidizing wages for child care workers. Later that year, Biden 
sought to create nationwide universal prekindergarten and to vastly expand 
child care subsidies for families so that none would pay more than 7% of their 
household income for care. But the proposal narrowly failed in Congress. Since 
then, the pandemic aid has dried up, and families are feeling the pinch of 
rising costs.

   Now, several candidates have centered their campaigns around child care 
affordability. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who won 
election after pledging to make the city more affordable for middle-class 
residents, ran on universal child care. Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill of New 
Jersey and Gov. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia won elections after pledging to 
expand child care subsidies.

   Candidates this election cycle are running on universal child care pledges. 
They include Democrats Janeese Lewis George, who is running for mayor in 
Washington, D.C., and Francesca Hong, a gubernatorial candidate in Iowa. New 
York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is up for reelection this year, has pledged to 
support Mamdani's ambitions and eventually to expand universal child care 
statewide.

   Neither the White House nor the Department of Health and Human Services, 
which oversees federal child care programs, responded to requests for comment. 
In his 2024 campaign, during an address to the Economic Club of New York, Trump 
said increasing foreign tariffs would "take care" of the expense of child care. 
That plan, thus far, has not materialized.

   In Trump's current term, the administration has largely focused on cracking 
down on fraud, after a viral video alleged Somali-run child care centers in 
Minneapolis were billing the government for children they weren't caring for.

   While there have been prosecutions stemming from child care subsidy fraud, 
the Minneapolis video's central claims were disproven by state inspectors. 
Nonetheless, the Trump administration attempted to freeze child care funding 
for Minnesota and five other Democratic-led states until a court ordered the 
funding to be released.