During World War II, the federal government spent more than $1 billion in today’s dollars to help provide affordable child care to mothers who entered the workforce in droves to support the war effort.
Child care centers in over 635 communities across the country have received funding. Many stayed open late and on weekends to match workers’ factory schedules.
The World War II-era child care program was the first and only federally administered child care service for all families, regardless of income – a qualifying factor for many many current federal child care subsidies.
But federal funding abruptly expired when the war ended, and now, some 80 years later, many American families are struggling to find affordable, high-quality child care that meets their needs. The private market simply does not offer adequate child care options.
President Joe Biden, who was unable to get his universal pre-K proposal through Congress, is now taking a different, more limited approach. He asks companies applying for certain federal grants meant to spur domestic manufacturing of semiconductor chips to also have a plan to provide their workers with access to affordable childcare.
The policy is designed to ensure that workers as well as businesses benefit from this federal investment, said Betsey Stevenson, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan, who previously served as an adviser to the former President Barack Obama.
“Another way to think about it is that we really need the government to get involved in childcare,” she said.
‘Rosie the Riveter’ leads to nationwide childcare
As men went overseas to fight in World War II and the federal government’s “Rosie the Riveter” campaign encouraged women to join the workforce, it became clear that child care was absolutely necessary.
The money came from the National Defense Housing Act of 1940, better known as the Lanham Act, which was intended to fund infrastructure projects deemed essential to the war effort. The Federal Public Works Agency decided in 1942 that child care services fell into this category.
The FWA allowed the funds to be used for the construction and maintenance of child care centers, to train and pay teachers, and to provide meals to communities directly involved in the war effort. Money for child care has been paid out to centers in almost every state.
Parents generally had to contribute, paying less than $1 a day for child care.
“It’s pretty remarkable. The country basically had a comprehensive child care program in place in a matter of months,” said Chris Herbst, an associate professor at Arizona State University, who published a 2013 study on the Lanham Act child care program.
Herbst found that mothers’ paid work increased dramatically as a result of child care subsidies. He also found that these mothers were more likely to be working 20 years later.
The program also had a long-term impact on the children, who Herbst said were more likely to achieve higher levels of education and employment in the future, and less likely to receive other types of government assistance throughout their lives.
Biden’s CHIPS Act
Currently, the federal government subsidizes child care for low-income families through programs such as the Child Care and Development Fund and Head Start programs.
But many families still struggle to afford childcare, and those who can afford it struggle to find it. After the Covid-19 pandemic dealt a severe blow to the child care industry, the federal government provided funding to help keep child care centers operating. But radical and lasting reform has repeatedly failed in Congress.
Last year, lawmakers passed the CHIPS and Science Act, which invests more than $200 billion over five years to help the United States bring semiconductor chip manufacturing back to places like China. The law isn’t specifically about childcare, but now the Commerce Department requires certain businesses to also provide access to childcare in order to be eligible for the money.
The CHIPS Act creates incentives for companies to build, expand and upgrade US facilities and equipment and is already stimulating private investment. Wolfspeed, a North Carolina semiconductor maker that Biden visited late last month, announced a $5 billion investment to build a facility, expecting to create 1,800 jobs there.
In February, the Biden administration added the child custody provision. Companies applying for certain grants over $150 million must also submit a plan to provide their facilities and construction workers with access to affordable, high-quality childcare, according to government guidelines. .
“The first thing I thought of was that it was ‘Lanham Part Two,'” said Kathryn Edwards, assistant economist at the RAND Corporation.
“We want to make sure we have workers for this essential industry, so we’re going to have child care,” she said.
Like the Lanham Act, the childcare program is backed by legislation primarily focused on industrial policy. But the CHIPS law requires the employer to provide the service, rather than paying funds directly to local daycares.
“Here’s the truth: CHIPS won’t succeed if we don’t grow the workforce. We can’t do it without affordable child care,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said. tweeted in February.
Herbst thinks it could be a few years before workers see how child care requirements play out and how each employer decides to structure benefits. They can choose to provide on-site childcare or offer employees childcare vouchers.
“The administration has, I think, a commitment to child care. I think the question is whether that’s the best way to show that commitment,” Herbst said.
The-CNN-Wire
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