CAPAC Chair Joins Tri-Caucus Chairs, White House Advisors to Advocate for President Biden’s Child Care Funding Request

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) Chair Rep. Judy Chu (CA-28) joined White House advisors and the other Tri-Caucus Chairs on a press call to advocate for congressional action on President Biden’s $16 billion child care domestic supplemental funding request.

Other attendees included: Congressional Black Caucus Chair (CBC) Rep. Steven Horsford (NV-04), Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Rep. Nanette Barragan (CA-44), White House Domestic Policy Advisor Neera Tanden, and White House Director of the Gender Policy Council Jennifer Klein.

During the press call, Chair Chu remarked:

I am pleased to join my fellow Tri-Caucus Chairs and our partners in the White House to call on Congress to pass a domestic supplemental package that includes the President’s $16 billion request to bolster our nation’s child care system following the expiration of American Rescue Plan Act funding in September.

Our nation’s child care system was fragile long before the coronavirus pandemic stressed it to the brink. Thankfully in March 2021, President Biden signed into law Congressional Democats’ American Rescue Plan Act, which included funding for child care programs. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, these funds were a lifeline to child care providers, keeping over 220,000 of them across the country afloat and sustaining child care for up to 10 million children. Fully one third of child care providers who received a stabilization grant said their child care program would have closed permanently without the grants.

These actions were critical to providers like Cristian Corona in Los Angeles County who opened up her home childcare business, Little Sprouts Language Immersion Preschool just before the pandemic hit. She used federal relief dollars to keep her doors open and staff employed. In California alone, without continued federal support, more than 13,000 programs like Cristian’s are at risk of closing, putting nearly 84,000 children at risk of losing care.

Access to child care is especially important for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander, or AANHPI, families, who often live in multigenerational, immigrant households where breadwinners provide care and economic support to their children, elderly parents and extended family members. Federally-funded Head Start programs, in particular, serve many dual language learner AANHPI children who need both English and home language support to effectively participate in school and achieve academic success.  Head Start child care centers nurture these dual language learners by supporting children’s home languages in the classroom and creating welcoming environments that incorporate the cultural and linguistic backgrounds of families in the community.

Unfortunately, half of all Asian American women live where there are either no child care providers OR so few options that there are more than three times as many children as licensed child care slots. Moreover, AANHPI women are overrepresented in the low wage workforce and struggle to make ends meet to even pay for child care. Because of all these factors, 1 in 10 AANHPI parents report having to quit, turn down, or make a major change in their job due to child care disruptions. When child care centers close from limited funding, we’re even further restraining the economic opportunity of our communities across the country.  

That is why I joined my colleagues in sending a letter urging House appropriators to provide robust funding for child care in any supplemental funding package. It is crucial that we ensure: child care centers and family child care providers nationwide remain affordable and open; child care workers are paid their due; and ALL families have reliable options for high quality care while they work. To do this, Congress should pass a supplemental package immediately that meets the President’s request for $16 billion in child care funding and pursue long term reform like that offered in his past three budgets.

Click here for more information about President Biden’s domestic supplemental request.

Click here for a White House fact sheet on child care and state-by-state breakdown of potential impacts to decreased child care funding.