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This was originally published on March 27, 2024
The child care crisis in America just got a bit of relief. In the latest government funding bill just approved by the White House, there’s a $1 billion increase for programs focused on child care and early childhood learning.
This new funding includes an additional $275 million for the Head Start program and $725 million for the Child Care and Development Block Grant. That’s roughly a 30% increase in the funds, which states choose how to spend.
“One way that states might choose to use this increased funding is to increase subsidy eligibility thresholds,” said Susan Gale Perry, CEO of the nonprofit Child Care Aware of America. “Which means more families would have access to help paying for child care. It may also be used for things like improving the rates that states pay for child care providers so that they can, in turn, attract and retain qualified staff and increase the quality of their programs.”