Advocates and educators testifying on childcare access and affordability in the u. S. Before the Senate Health education labor and pensions committee. They discuss expanding childcare access and the impact of available childcare on the economy and training and education requirements for caregivers and educators. This is about two hours. Lets get the show in the. Road Senate Committee on House Institution and labor coming to order. And let me begin by thanking all of our panelists for being here for what will be i think a very important discussion of what tens of millions of families in this country. As the nation, we often talk about family values and how much we love our children. But unfortunately we have a funny way of showing that love. In America Today, we have the highest rates of childhood poverty of almost any major country on earth. And we have if we will be discussing today, a broken its dysfunctional childcare system. It is no great secret thats the psychologists tell us thats the most important years of human intellectual and Emotional Development are zero through four. That is what the psychologist tell us. Yet there are very few people i think who will come to the conclusion in this country that we provide our youngest children with a kind of love and care and attention that they need. And that really is disgraceful. Young people are the future of american in many ways we have turned our backs on them. We are the richest country in the history of the world. And there is no excuse if we got our priorities right, why we should not be providing the highest Quality Childcare for little ones, and to ease problems for their parents. Again i dont have to tell anybody who is here in America Today the cost of childcare for a variety of reasons is outrageously high. And unaffordable. Unaffordable to millions and millions of working class and middle class families. Inform, on which i think is about the national average, its about 15,000. Here in d. C. As your staff will tell you if youve any kids who have staff. If youve any staff who have children, they will tell you you know what childcare is in d. C. . It is about 30,000 a, year which is very high. Maximum 30,000 a year if you are on the payroll. And how can a working class family of people make 50 60,000 70,000 a year . And afford to spend 15,000 a year on child care or even more . And the result of that is, that according to a recent survey, 40 of parents in america have gone into debt to due to the cost of childcare and nearly 30 of how to make unacceptable choices paying for childcare or paying their rent. In other, words, if you want to get america and your working class were gonna make you pay for that. You will go deeply in debt. Thank you for having a child. Not exactly what i think we should be doing as a nation. All over, not only is the cost of childcare outrageously high but for families in most parts of this country it is very very difficult to find a slot. And i will not surprise anybody on this committee, because weve all heard the story. People get pregnant in the first thing they do is call of a Child Care Center or place and trying to find a spot. And they are told, well maybe but it will be in all likelihood that you will be on a waiting list. And the other point that i would make is not only the childcare is terribly expensive. Not only is there not enough slots. But if we appreciate the kids and we understand how important care is for the kids, that obviously the conclusion is you are going to respect the people who work with the children. Who you cant argue do some of the most important work in america. Nurturing the little children. And yet we are paying in this country, those, workers outrageously low wages. We are paying them starvation wages and we are talking about paying peoplelelelele 13, 14 a. And the result of that is tens of thousands of people are leaving and are making more working in mcdonalds then they can nurturing our little children. And the last point that i would make is that if you think this is about the children and you think there is this about the parents you are wrong. It is also about the economy. Nobody has the exact numbers but ive heard that there are at least many many hundreds of thousands of people, mostly women, who would like to enter the workforce, but they cant. Because they cannot find quality affordable childcare. We made progress in the American Rescue plan and finally leon i States Congress says, we appreciate our children we appreciate our workers, we appreciate our parents are gonna do something about it. And we significantly increased funding for childcare. Not enough but we made some progress. Right now though, we are at a precipice where that funding may disappear. That funding kept over 200,000 childcare providers in business and sustained childcare for nearly 10 million kids and preventing the million childcare workers from using losing their jobs. According to it is a. Good news the bad news is that congress does nothing this will expire on september 30th of this year, making a very bad situation worse. We cannot afford to allow that to happen, we need to renew that vital funding. But let us be clear, that is not all we need to do. We need a vision for all those at the family values. We need a vision of the future and understand that everybody in america, every family has the right to high quality in affordable childcare. Child care workers deserve decent pay for the important work that they do. And we must expand the number of childcare programs available slip anybody in america can get the quality care they need. They look forward to working with all of my colleagues on this committee to make that a reality, and with that let me recognize thank, you senator sanders. Child care obviously is too expensive for those who need it. But i think it is important to note that it has become more expensive as we have pumps more federal dollars into it. Kind of odd. Im a, doctor i always say in health care as a doctor dont just will through a lot more money added we get and why did we sit and thank . I will point out that we can agree that childcare is important for working families. At least this republican. More government and more of the kind of spending that Congressional Democrats are doing is not a. Solution i will point out that after failing to convince americans that the build back better plan was a good idea, democrats are providing additional federal dollars under the guise of a crisis. A crisis which we will talk about that. This committee does oversee a block grant that is a federal Program Providing child care systems to working families, low income working families, through a Voucher Program which retains Parental Choice. My democratic colleagues are trying to create a governmentrun childcare system. This is despite a 2022 Bipartisan Policy Center, who finds 57 of parents prefer informal childcare over formal Childcare Centers, including if they are free and conveniently located. A one size fits all model of institutional childcare with massive federal spending doesnt seem to match what parents want toward working families need. I will also note by the way, the irony is not lost on anyone that we are days away from the federal government, theoretically defaulting on the stat and we are discussing among other things an additional 600 billion dollars to spend on a governmentrun institutionalized childcare system. So, lets think about this. By the way, we spoke of a crisis. The plan comes in response to a crisis of its own making. As a democrat flooded the child Care Industry with a 39 billion dollars in what was supposed to be a short term covid19 spending. There is 18 billion dollars it is still not been spent. The department of health and Human Services had to grant nine states for territories and any two tribes waivers going back to 2019 because they have not been able to spend their money on time. I would also like to point out that hhs us and the governor dependability office is an official source of information that cannot tell us how the childcare funding is being used. And anecdotally, there are stories of the money not being used well. For example, i have heard that its not been used for the direct operation running the Child Care Center. But on ancillary issues which are peripheral to actually providing childcare. And i look forward to hearing from hhs and geo about what they found. And we need this information. We can say oh my gosh, they could spend a whole lot more money. There is a crisis and we have to do something. It is very emotional. But we dont know how the money is, and there are 18 billion dollars out there. And we dont know the money that has been spent and how it has been spent. We should have this information to understand the scope and to make an informed decision about potential legislation. It kind of blows my mind that we would dramatically increase funding without knowing how the existing funding is being spent. Just think about that. 18 billion left to be spent. Will dramatically increase the funding and we dont know how the money that weve all been put out there has been spent. Now, keep in mind that the massive unchecked spending is how this crisis was created. Now we are told that the crisis can only be solved with even more massive federal takeover policies and funding, in some cases removing Parental Choice. If there is one thing that we learned during the covid19 pandemic, parents want to be involved. This committee should make it easier for americans to pick the best childcare option for their family. Not financially coerce them into a federal government for an institution. By the way, we have seen this movie before. As federal for example Student Loans. As more federal assistance is moving towards Student Loans the cost of student, a Higher Education skyrocket. Its now it is to the point where we have got to forgive a lot of Student Loans, because, i could keep going but you know what my point is. I will also point out that as pointed out by a man named Matthew Desmond in his book evicted, poverty and profit in the american city, when the federal government through additional money at housing programs the funding was largely swallowed up by a bureaucracy in charge rather than actually meeting those in need on the ground. I will point, out mr. Desmond im sure would selfidentify as a liberal. He is writing about a need to further address poverty. There is nothing in here that would suggest he is a conservative. There is a lot in there to say that he is looking and how we spend money in bureaucracy it does not meet the needs of those on the ground. Lets just not to do something, lets think. Now, when we speak about making childcare affordable through federal assistance, we have to make sure that we are not worsening the very problem we wish to solve. Or fueling an ever exploiting cost of this transfer on to the back of taxpayers. And by the way, it is worth repeating that there are still billions of unspent dollars being used to address childcare through the end of the next fiscal year. I will point out this is but there are billions to address it through the end of the next fiscal year. And we are having this hearing when there are 90 Different Health care reauthorizations. Health care we authorizations, going before this committee, which will expire in september if we do not address this. To be more specific the committee has not formally considered bipartisan texts, let alone marked up anything. If these are not addressed before august recess, that means we will have less which means we will have less than two months to do non reauthorizations or it will not happen. This is a basic responsibility of the committee and a lack of progress towards accomplishing this basic responsibilities concerning. Now, childcare is incredibly important issue. We have nine Crucial Health care we authorizations about to expire in september. Hopefully the june calendar for this committee will prioritize getting those done. How do we finish . I think the witnesses will be in here. They care deeply about affordable childcare. What to the American People dont know is why this is going to be different than all of the other patterns like Higher Education and health care and other areas, where increased federal spending has done a little to improve quality or costs and in many instances has done the opposite. We want affordable childcare and we do not want more bureaucracy and more Government Spending that is wasted. Without any yield. S let me now turn to senator wuhan who will introduce our first witness, who is secretary elizabeth kaczynski of new mexico. Thank you to the chairman of the Ranking Member for holding todays hearing. And thank you to all of our witnesses for being here today as a head start, i know the value of a high quality Early Childhood education. And i believe that congress should be strengthening its support for childcare in this country. Not taking steps backwards. And it might surprise, you there are only two sitting u. S. Senators who went to and im proud to be one of. Them i am incredibly grateful to welcome our secretary, Elizabeth Groginsky. Who is our cabinet secretary for the Early ChildhoodEducation Department from new mexico. Just four years ago, before it came out from the Casey Foundation which is an annual report mentoring a student will be in across the country. We are very thankful in our state that our governor stepped forward and she initiated something that was important for us back in mexico. I think that an example across the country of something where we are now one of few states including alabama and georgia in massachusetts and washington, to do that. And what our governor did was she created a new cabinet secretary position, an agency in 2019, to put programs of childrens zero to five under one roof. Secretary groginsky answered the call. She is our first cabinet secretary for Early Childhood education in this capacity and helping families and helping children in new mexico. Now, thanks to the flexibility baked into the federal childcare assistance and the amount, provided new mexico is able to make significant steps in improving and helping children. But improving the system that we have in our states. Secretary groginsky is here to share her story of how transformational these onetime investments were. But also to emphasize that they are worth sustaining. It is critical for congress to look at what worked with the pandemic. With this investment. Helping kids. And how it made a difference in peoples lives. And for the committee to come together to restart the bipartisan conversation as well. So i want to thank and welcome our secretary and i want to say thank you for being here to help share your story. Thank you. Secretary groginsky, the floor is yours. Thank you, senator lujan. Good morning chairman sanders and Ranking Member cassidy and members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to testify about new mexicos success towards building a high quality, equitable and affordable Early Childhood system that supports families needs by delivering earlier dictation in care for Young Children during their years of most critical and rapid developments. As an antedates teen beautiful nieces and nephews, a great aunt of 19 and in my role as cabinet secretary, i know firsthand the struggles enjoys of working families and childcare providers. Yeah i will discuss how new mexico transforms trial here to support families, improve children shortened on farm outcomes, and increased and strengthen the childcare workforce that cares for and educate them. These actions, taken, together ultimately fuel the Economy Today and into the future. Our state has a unique historical context, diverse cultures and languages with families and traditions going back many hundreds of years. We are shape by 23 sovereign tribes which comprise 11 of our population in 49 hispanic population. A graced of our city which contributes to the depth and the beauty of our state. Despite these strength, new mexico a struggle for generations to realize its potential. The reasons for this are complex and many rooted in historical inequities. Under the leadership of our governor, Michelle Lujan grisham, new mexico has pursued a bold transformational visitor vision. Like every other state their child Care Industry was on the brink of collapse during the early months of the pandemic. Providers of and revenue plummeted exacerbating issues with retaining staff. Fortunately the federal government recognize that childcare is crucial to families in the local economies and made historic investments in the industry. Amidst this crisis, new mexico identified an opportunity with these federal funds, to stabilize and remake the foundation of the states childCare Industry. Critical to the success of this federal funding funding was its flexibility. Because of this flexibility, new mexico could be nimble and created with these funds. And preserve the Delivery System that gives families the choices that they want and need. With the, support the state established groundbreaking initiatives and policy changes. First, we stabilize the industry to ensure access to high quality education. New mexico is a low point in childcare capacity came in febru