Hi Rulers! Eventful news week, huh? Did anyone win at GOP debate bingo? Heads up: Women Rule won’t publish next week, as we’re taking a little end-of-summer hiatus. But we’ll be back in your inbox Sept. 8. In the meantime, send me some story ideas: sgardner@politico.com. Women are returning to the workforce at record rates after their participation took a blow during the pandemic. Activists say that the upcoming end of pandemic-era child care funding may put a dent in that progress. On Sept. 30, federal child care funding that was allocated as part of the American Rescue Plan is set to expire. The September deadline could mean the closure of 70,000 child care programs and approximately 3.2 million children losing their child care spots, according to a report from The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank. States have roughly $4.1 billion in remaining child care stabilization funds of the $24 billion originally allocated in the plan, which will expire at the end of next month. They’ll also have a year to spend roughly 12 billion in supplemental Child Care Development Fund dollars. Without the stabilization funds, child care prices are likely to increase in the fall – pricing out some families. The brunt of that child care work may fall to working mothers, activists say. “We know that women, during the pandemic and in general, are the ones who are the primary caretakers and are the ones who are most likely to reduce their work hours or leave the workforce altogether when they don't have child care,” says Julie Kashen, the lead author on the study. The Democratic Women's Caucus shares that concern. In an exclusive to Women Rule, their leadership is demanding to meet with President Joe Biden to discuss solutions to what’s become known as the “child care cliff.” “What we hope to accomplish by calling for this meeting is emphasizing that we need to work together to address this looming cliff,” Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) tells Women Rule. “This is urgent.” The meeting request is only the latest attempt from the caucus to secure federal funding for child care before the deadline. A plea endorsed by the caucus last month for Biden to support $16 billion in child care funding turned up short when the administration failed to include the funding in its supplemental funding request (though it did urge Congress to “act quickly” to “ensure continued funding” for child care programs). Bonamici says that she and several other representatives will soon be introducing the Child Care Stabilization Act, which would extend the pandemic-era grants. “That is going to be the best way to continue, but we're certainly open. If there's other ways we can address this, we will do that,” says Bonamici. “But we need to emphasize the urgency.” She says she’s optimistic about getting enough bipartisan support to pass the measure, despite a divided Congress. “We're going to continue to tell the story about why this is critical,” she says. Biden, at the beginning of his presidency, identified his goals for child care funding, including $225 billion to fully cover child care for low-income Americans and an additional $200 billion for universal preschool. So far, he’s been unable to deliver on those goals, thanks to a gridlocked Congress. Some child care provisions, including funding for pre-K, almost passed in 2021, as part of what was then known as the Build Back Better package, but were eventually dropped — ultimately as a result of Sen. Joe Manchin’s concern over the package’s hefty price tag. “The Build Back Better plan was going to build the whole system that we've long needed,” Kashen says. “So [the Pandemic-era funding] was supposed to be a bridge to the other side that we would have in place. Instead, this is a bridge — but then we fall off the cliff.” Activists are worried that the cliff will mean less women in the workforce in general. But they also say that it will have an outsized effect on certain demographics. “It's gonna, you know, exacerbate inequities for populations in places that are already struggling with systemic barriers,” says Whitney Pesek, the director of federal child care policy for the National Women’s Law Center. “The ones that come to mind are rural areas, farm families, urban communities where families are making lower incomes, and families led by Black or Latina mothers. Black women are much more likely to be the breadwinner of their family.” Women of color are also more likely to work in child care: 94 percent of child care workers are female, and 40 percent are people of color, according to a 2022 Education Trust and the Chamber of Commerce Foundation. That means they’ll also be harder hit by any closures or wage cuts in the industry. “The unwinding end of this funding actually impacts women and women of color specifically, and is problematic for those individuals,” says Julie Morita, executive vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “But it's also incredibly problematic for the children that are receiving the services.” Miriam Calderón, Chief Policy Officer at Zero to Three and Department of Education alum, tells Women Rule that “child care is the work that makes all other work possible.”
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