Iowa's Child Care Debate Has Big Lessons For The Rest Of The Country
Providers are begging for help, but not the kind some state lawmakers want to give them.
If you want to understand the child care crisis unfolding in America -- and the types of solutions some Republicans are putting forward -- take a closer look at the debate unfolding in Iowa.
It is the subject of my latest piece at HuffPost.
Child care providers there are struggling for the same reason providers all over the country are struggling: They can't hire workers now that kids are coming back in large numbers.
The problem is money. Even before the pandemic, low wages in child care made it hard to attract and retain talented workers. But providers had little ability to offer higher salaries, because families were already paying as much as they could and government help was limited. That's still the case -- and it's making it impossible for child care providers to compete for labor with the restaurants, retailers and other businesses offering more.
In Iowa, providers have been begging the state government for help -- and the Republicans in charge have promised just that. Gov. Kim Reynolds even made child care a focus of her annual "Condition of the State" address.
But now the GOP-controlled legislature has put forward three bills. And instead of plowing new money into the system, they're proposing to deregulate it -- most controversially, by relaxing standards for care. Today, an adult can supervise no more than 6 two-year-olds. Under the new plan, they could supervise as many as 8.
Plenty of providers say they won’t do that, warning of consequences for quality and safety. One, whose center consistently gets high quality ratings, told me “I won’t warehouse kids.” But they worry about other providers who might accept more kids without more staff, just because they are under so much financial pressure and need the revenue.
If you've ever had to watch over even 2 or 3 toddlers by yourself, you can understand the fear.
These providers are hopeful that the state Republicans will come around and find some more money. They're also keeping their eyes on Washington, to see whether Democrats succeed in passing some version of the early childhood initiative that was in Build Back Better legislation, which was designed -- in part -- to raise child care salaries.
But even if that initiative passes -- and that's very much an "if," obviously -- it would depend on states participating and putting in some of their own money. If you've followed this debate, you know that even many advocates and experts worry states will balk.
So what would Iowa do? Advocates there told me they are genuinely unsure.
On the one hand, they are under tremendous pressure from business to act. And Reynolds has accepted federal rescue money for child care. The governor's office told me that they've added a total of 9,000 child care slots statewide through a series of grants and other expenditures drawing on both state and federal dollars.
But that's all one-time spending -- not an ongoing commitment, which is what Build Back Better envisions and what it would take to create the sort of program that exists in other developed countries. Iowa Republicans have shown no enthusiasm for that, although they're happily promoting a $300 million tax cut.
Here’s a link to the new article.
Thank you for reading.