U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has announced bipartisan legislation to address the nationwide shortage of affordable child care.
Nearly two-thirds of New Yorkers live in communities that lack adequate access to child care, a share higher than in all but 4 states. Gillibrand’s bill would provide $100 million in federal funding over 5 years for states to build or expand child care facilities and to help train a robust child care workforce.
The Child Care Workforce and Facilities Act would address the shortage of affordable child care and qualified child care professionals by providing competitive workforce development grants and facilities grants to states. Flexible workforce development grants can be used for a wide range of job training activities, such as offering scholarships or tuition subsidies; paying for the purchase of textbooks, equipment or other required educational materials; or covering other education and referral costs necessary to increase labor participation in the state’s child care sector. Facilities grants would fund the construction, expansion, or renovation of child care facilities.
Prioritized projects would be ones that expand access to child care in child care deserts – areas where the number of children under the age of five is more than three times the number of slots with local child care providers who are licensed by the state. Under this definition, 64 percent of New Yorkers live in a child care desert, including 73 percent of those in rural areas.
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