With many childcare programs closed or operating with reduced capacity due to public health guidelines, a group of 41 state and local chambers of commerce has urged Congress to provide targeted assistance to childcare providers in its next legislative package.
“For millions of Americans, returning to work is not just contingent on the lifting of stay-at-home orders and their employer reopening, but on securing care for their children,” the group of state and local chambers wrote in the June 10 letter to Congress.
“To ensure that more Americans can quickly return to work and to support our nation’s overall economic recovery, Congress should provide timely, targeted, and temporary emergency assistance to licensed childcare centers and homes.”
The letter added that the childcare industry consists of many small and very small businesses – often run by women and women of color – and roughly only one-quarter received a Paycheck Protection Loan through the CARES Act.
“For those that have remained open and that will reopen, decreased capacity and new pandemic-related costs mean operating losses,” the state and local chambers said in the letter. “That will eventually lead to more closures and even less available childcare.”
These Chambers recognize the economic impact of childcare on their state’s economy and the key role it plays in their return to work plans. Childcare breakdowns cost our businesses and economy significantly before the pandemic, so this crisis has exacerbated the need for childcare.
The letter follows other letters that have similarly urged for bipartisan support for the childcare industry.
Learn more about the work of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s work on business investment in early childhood education at uschamberfoundation.org/early-childhood-education.
