Senator Murray Pushes for Critical Child Care Funding Alongside Rep. DeLauro, White House Officials

Press Release

"I've been fighting for child care since before I got into politics--as a preschool teacher, as a parent, as a state legislator.

And just last month when I was home, I visited a child care center at Shoreline Community College--where I actually used to teach--where I heard from families firsthand about how incredibly hard it is to find child care that is available and one that they can actually afford.

This is just so important to our families. It's important to our entire economy, and it's been broken for a very long time and now the sector is just hanging by a thread.

Which is why I've worked so hard with Rosa and others--President Biden, Democrats--when we passed the child care stabilization funding which was such a lifeline helping 220,000 providers keep their doors open and serve as many as 10 million kids.

But that funding has expired--and we've got to act on President Biden's request for supplemental funds soon.

So, let's be clear: this supplemental is to keep the child care system afloat.

We have to do a lot more to rebuild child care in America--like pass our Child Care for Working Families Act but what we are talking about today is really urgent funding to keep the child care industry from crumbling.

And the fallout if we do not act is going to echo through our entire economy.

Because, as I'm sure you've heard, without support, our child care providers are staring down some very impossible decisions--laying off staff, cutting child care slots, raising prices for families, or just simply shutting their doors because they have no other choice.

So this is a huge problem for working parents. They are already struggling and they are going to be pushed out of the workforce if we don't have these child care stabilization funds.

So we do not want people to lose jobs, we don't want to worsen the economy--this would be a big hit to it. And the only thing we can do and the most important thing we can do is pass these emergency funds.

So I'm really glad we have a President in the White House who truly gets that child care must be at the top of our agenda, and I will be working with Rosa and others to try and get this supplemental bill through both houses to make sure we have the funding we need."

Source