Senator Murray Warns of Coming Child Care Funding Cliff, Need for Action to Prevent Child Care Crisis from Worsening Further

Hearing

"We have a child care crisis--and we actually had a child care crisis before COVID. But it was a silent crisis, because parents did not talk about it--because they were worried when they went to get a job that if they said "I don't know what I'm going to do with my kids,' they wouldn't get that job. But the pandemic actually opened up this conversation. I will tell you everywhere I go in my state, people talk about the fact that they do want to go get that job, but they cannot because they're 200th on a waiting list. Or they say to me, "there's a slot open but I can't afford it. It's half my salary.' Or: "I will have to work part time. Why am I working part time? This doesn't make any sense.'

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We have a child care crisis, and we need to deal with it as a country. And I will tell you: I am concerned that the stabilization funds that end [soon] are going to make it even worse, and that's a reality we have to face.

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I want to put that to rest right now. We keep hearing: "one size fits all.' "Government-run.' That's now how the system works. It's never gonna work that way.

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To boil it down to a discussion about curriculum or masks is ludicrous."

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