The road to universal childcare will be local

Current spikes in RSV, flu and COVID are drawing attention to the shortcomings of the childcare system in America. With many parents being forced to take their sick children to work or risk being fired, the need for reliable child care has never been more evident. And this glaring need is serving as a catalyst for local action. In the midterm elections, for the first time in history, the residents of one state voted for universal childcare from birth. Near 70% of voters in New Mexico approved a ballot measure to alter the state’s constitution to make free and public education and childcare a right from birth to age five. Despite similar bipartisan support at the federal level, attempts to secure publicly funded childcare have gone nowhere. Once a central component of the “Build Back Better” plan, universal childcare was cut out of the social infrastructure policy agenda, leaving states and cities on their own. But across the country, diverse efforts are already underway. It’s imperative that local and state governments follow these powerful examples.

Today, there are initiatives underway to establish free or widely expanded childcare in California, Washington, D.C., Georgia, Maine and Colorado. Multnomah County in Oregon passed a ballot measure in 2020 with 64 percent of the vote, approving a tax on the wealthy to fund preschool for all three and four year olds. “Preschool is the first and easiest step. The next thing that is absolutely necessary is care from zero to two, because there is a huge need, and it’s so expensive and so challenging,” said Mary King, professor emerita at Portland State University.

Over the last decade, in interviews and focus groups across the country, we heard hundreds of moms describe the fear of leaving their kids in the only care they could find and afford. Moms encountered waitlists for subsidized childcare that were years long and unsafe conditions in centers that accepted public vouchers. They told us about roaches and buckets catching drips from the ceiling, only to be overturned by toddlers. We interviewed childcare staff who said that they were caring for too many children and only able to focus on keeping kids from being injured.

With no publicly funded child care system, parents take desperate measures every day to ensure their kids’ safety. “I hid my daughter in the bottom of one of those big racks behind the bakery counter, but my boss found her. He saw her little feet hanging out,” said a Latina mom of three we met in Connecticut. She knew hiding her child in a bread rack would seem like terrible parenting. But in the absence of childcare, she was left with little choice.

We heard many stories detailing how a lack of childcare directly interferes with parents’ ability to work — despite a decades-long push in U.S. politics to get poor Americans into jobs. In 2020, a Latina mother of a little girl, was apprenticing to become an electrician. Given the current shortage, it would mean she’d land a job tripling her retail pay. But a few months later she gave up because she couldn’t find safe, reliable childcare. “I was a single parent, you have no choice.”

While the $7.25 minimum wage has remained unchanged for 13 years, the cost of childcare has skyrocketed. The average annual cost for infant care in Oregon is over $13,600, in New Mexico over $8,600 and in Massachusetts hovering around $20,000/year. But pro-corporate politicians have found it all too easy to ignore the voices of poor moms who are less likely to vote than their wealthy counterparts. The popularity of the ballot initiatives in New Mexico and Multnomah County, combined with burgeoning efforts towards universal childcare in a half a dozen states suggest this could be changing. 

Throughout history, many national programs serving women and children have grown out of grassroots local and state efforts. By 1925, 40 states had developed their own public aid programs for poor mothers, which essentially became the federal Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program. Often led by women organizing for change, many of them mothers, local efforts to end child labor and provide free school lunches eventually led to the development of national policies.

Funding is the biggest obstacle to local and state childcare efforts. While taxing the wealthy was palatable to Portland voters, the New Mexico initiative relies on a different funding source, a land grant fund. Similarly, in Maine, Gov. Janet Mills (D) announced $2.7 million in state grant funding to create or reinvigorate pre-k programs in 14 districts throughout the state with a second round planned for 2023. Among the first states to offer one year of pre-k for all kids, the Oklahoma state legislature did so by adding a provision to an existing public school funding bill permitting four year olds to enroll. 

These state-level initiatives use approaches that best fit who and where they are, but what links them is a commitment to take care of children. Andrea Paluso, co-director of the national organization Child Care for Every Family Network, sees the power and potential of grassroots organizations, cities and states working together and coordinating campaigns across the country. But she also calls out the role of the federal government. “The failure of the federal government to sustainably invest in children’s care harms kids and families—and that has to change.”

Gridlock in a divided Congress makes it unlikely that we will see leadership on childcare policy at the federal level anytime soon. But across state lines and political rhetoric, local mothers need the chance to go to work and school and that means guaranteeing the right of all kids to safe, high-quality child care and education. We believe that over time states and localities will show us the way towards federal investment in child care for all.

Lisa Dodson is a retired research professor of sociology at Boston College. Amanda Freeman is an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Hartford. They are co-authors of Getting Me Cheap: How Low-Wage Work Traps Women and Girls in Poverty.