Name: Child Care Faces Threat as Funding for Centers Expires
Uploaded: 2023-10-02T19:17:00Z
Duration: 6 min 4 s
Description: Federal funding for an estimated 70,000 child-care centers nationwide ran out on September 30. Wall Street Journal “Numbers” columnist Josh Zumbrun joins host J.R. Whalen to discuss what families can expect going forward. Photo: Daniel Sangjib Min/Associated Press

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Federal funding for an estimated 70,000 child-care centers nationwide ran out on September 30. Wall Street Journal “Numbers” columnist Josh Zumbrun joins host J.R. Whalen to discuss what families can expect going forward. Photo: Daniel Sangjib Min/Associated Press

https://m.wsj.net/video/20231002/46f49be1-fc39-45b9-bbf9-c54e50eb3d43/1/hls/manifest-hd-wifi.m3u8

Child Care Faces Threat as Funding for Centers Expires

Here's "Your Money Briefing," for Monday, October 2nd. I'm J.R. Whalen for the Wall Street Journal. 70,000 childcare centers around the country, and roughly 3.2 million children could be affected as federal childcare funding has run out. What can families with children expect? Wall Street Journal numbers columnist, Josh Zumbrun, joins me. So Josh, why did federal funding for childcare end on September 30th?

If you have a kid in childcare, there's a pretty good chance you've encountered this, that the third big stimulus package that the government passed during the pandemic, included $24 billion for childcare spending. It went to childcare centers, it went to family childcares, and it was a very significant lifeline for the industry during that kind of later pandemic period. And, it was set to expire September 30th, at the end of the government's fiscal year. And so, it's over now. And so, the question is, what's gonna happen to all of these centers that serve so many kids, when they no longer have this extra boost of funding?

Has there been any talk of more federal funding coming down the pipe?

There's proposals that are out there from democratic senators, and the original idea was that you would do this temporary boost in the pandemic program and then you would come in with, kind of, like, a permanent childcare program. And, they've never gotten to any sort of consensus on how exactly to do that. So, although the idea is out there, there's senators and congressmen that are very passionate about the idea, it's not really something that seems to be close to coming into place. And so, the situation for now is that the temporary pandemic program is over, and there's not a big new program to come in to fill that hole of what's gonna be missing.

What kind of an effect could the current situation have on families?

One of the things that's gotten so much attention, and it was kind of what we were looking at when we wrote this column, was there's this estimate out there that, as many as 70,000 childcare centers are likely to close, and that 3.2 million children could lose their slots. Those are some numbers that everyone has latched onto, but I think they're actually very dire to the point that even the authors of that estimate, they've described it as the childcare cliff, but when I talk to them about it, they don't really think this is gonna play out like an abrupt cliff where that many centers or that many kids are gonna lose their spots anytime soon.

Why is that?

Well, part of the reason is because they sounded an effective warning, that there was this end of the funding, and it gives everyone, kind of, time to prepare. Everyone knew the moment this was signed into law, that it was ending September 30th, 2023, and it's been apparent for some time that no new funding was coming into place. And so, rather than everyone just charge off this cliff, places have been getting ready. A lot of childcare centers have already begun raising rates or making staffing decisions in anticipation of the federal funding going away. Quite a few states actually have stepped in with fairly sizable childcare programs to, kind of, replace what the federal government was doing. There's smaller things too. There's corporate programs that are growing that are, kind of, like a significant thing, again, where corporations are doing childcare subsidy type things. And so, there's a lot of things coming together to mitigate the impact of what that cliff was originally described as being.

So, the good news is that many childcare centers got ahead of this, but weren't costs high to begin with?

That's right. You know, this was a kind of a temporary program, and there were lots of industries that needed temporary help through the pandemic, you know, so many industries benefited from temporary programs in these stimulus packages. And so, there's nothing unusual really in that sense. And, there've been warnings when all of these programs ended really, that there was the potential for just, kind of, disastrous cliffs. I mean, we saw that when the extra $600 that was in unemployment payments ended, there was concern about what that would mean. We saw concern about, there was gonna be an eviction of tsunamis, was the phrase for when the rental assistance and eviction programs ended. And, in each of those cases, it's not quite what happened. You know, when you have a temporary program that comes in and it helps for a while, and then it goes away, it doesn't really set you back to a dramatically different situation than you were before the program happened. And, I think that's what's happening here, is that, kind of, childcare is reverting to status quo before the pandemic, which isn't necessarily a great status quo. I mean, I know childcare was just mindbogglingly expensive. I've got two little kids myself, and it's crippling really. But, it is the system we had before. It's not, kind of, shifting, falling off a cliff, into some dramatically different and worse environment. It's the same old problems coming back again.

In almost like a cycle, if we get into another federal funding situation, where the funding is going to run out, it seems like childcare centers and other organizations are keen to this, and would know how to prepare.

That's right. The cliffs you wanna worry about are the ones that nobody's warning you of. When you have time to know that a program is ending, you know, obviously anybody would rather have the funds than not have the funds, and most parents with kids in childcare would like to see that funded to help bring the cost down. I don't think there's any kind of debate about those two points, but the question is, what happens when a program ends? Is it a kind of catastrophic cliff, or is it something where everybody knows it's coming, and has to make some adjustments, and kind of muddles through it? Typically, it's more like that latter situation than the, kind of, dramatics that sometimes get a lot of headlines.

That's Wall Street Journal numbers columnist, Josh Zumbrun, and that's it for "Your Money Briefing." Today's show is produced by Ariana Osperu, with supervising producer Melanie Roy. I'm J.R. Whalen for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.

WSJ's Your Money Briefing podcast is your personal-finance and career checklist. Finance reporters and experts break down complicated money questions every weekday to help you make better decisions about managing your money. 