"It feels like they're just setting everyone up for failure," says Kaitlyn Adkins, a West Virginia mom who dropped her toddler and 1-year-old twins off at daycare on a recent morning.
Adkins is one of 220,000 families across the country whose child care services were cut off Saturday due to a lack of federal funding, the AP reports.
The issue is that the two-year, $24 billion American Rescue Plan Act grants that subsidize child care for low-income families were set to expire in September 2024.
The Democratic proposal that would have extended the grants for five years without any Republican support failed last month without any Republican support.
The most at-risk providers are those in rural communities that serve low-income families.
The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank in Washington, DC, analyzed a provider survey and government data, and concluded that in five states Arkansas, Montana, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginiaas well as Washington, DCup to half of all providers may be forced to close.
Child care providers have been raising alarm about an unsustainable business model that burdens families with high costs and leaves centers with razor-thin profit marginsissues only exacerbated by inflation and a significant workforce shortage.
Now, providers say millions of children and their families
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Caroline Diehl is a serial social entrepreneur in the impact media space. She is Executive Chair and Founder of the UK’s only charitable and co-operatively owned national broadcast television channel Together TV, the leading broadcaster for social change runs a national TV channel in the UK and digital platform which helps people find inspiration to do good in their lives and communities.