Pandemic-era childcare funds are expiring as stimulus measures sputter out

No gold-star stickers… $24B in federal childcare funding is set to expire on Saturday. During the pandemic, the US gov’t doled out the grant $$ to 220K+ childcare centers to help them stay afloat. When the funding runs dry, 70K centers caring for 3M kids could close. Scholarships for daycare tuition are disappearing, too, leaving families with fewer and more expensive options.

• No-go: A push for $16B in extra funding isn’t likely to succeed anytime soon, as childcare measures struggle to win bipartisan support.

Livin’ on the edge… of what’s being called a childcare “cliff.” The tots-watching industry lost workers when people stayed home during the pandemic, and is still down by 65K jobs compared to early 2020. The workers that centers do find are asking for higher wages (it’s a hot labor market rn). But to meet higher-wage demands, center leaders say they’d have to raise tuition beyond what parents could afford. 

• The average cost of pre-K and daycare has already risen 6% this year, outpacing inflation. US families spend, on average, about a quarter of their income on childcare, with preschool costs hitting thousands of $$ a month in cities like NYC.

• Faced with fewer options, parents may leave the workforce to care for their kids themselves. Early in the pandemic, lots of caregivers — mostly mothers — made that trade-off once schools and daycares closed. Women’s labor-force participation has since rebounded to record levels, but another mass exodus could reverse the gains.