America is headed for a “child care apocalypse” if Congress is unable to avert a federal government shutdown that could begin as early as this weekend.
With less than 48 hours until federal funding lapses, both sides remain far apart on how to pass a spending package that would reauthorize federal spending. Failure to strike a deal would also halt subsidy money for child care providers, who say a shutdown could derail the industry.
“The federal shutdown could temporarily interrupt monthly child care food program reimbursements for child care programs serving low income children,” Cindy Lehnhoff, director of the National Child Care Association, told Newsweek. “More importantly the shutdown will delay the appropriations process that determines the 2024 discretionary budget for the Child Care Development Block Grant Program which is the federal subsidy program for child care.”
“It’s going to be a child care apocalypse,” Jordyn Rossignol, who used to run a child care center in northern Maine before shuttering operations due to rising costs, told NBC News. “If someone came to me today and said they wanted to open up a child care center, I’d say, ‘Don’t do it.’ I was in debt, and my health was suffering.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress approved unprecedented levels of spending to stabilize the sector, support more than 220,000 child care programs—80 percent of U.S.-licensed child care centers—stay afloat and deliver care for 9.6 million children, the Biden administration said. The tens of billions of dollars in child care funding, issued as part of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plant Act that Congress passed in March 2021, will expire Saturday by midnight.
It’s been estimated that when the child care stabilization grant program lapses on September 30, more than 70,000 child care programs across the nation are projected to close, according to an analysis by The Century Foundation. That means about 3.2 million children could lose child care this week.
Advocates have referred to the expiration of the program as the “child care cliff,” citing the issues that have long faced child care in America, such as steep costs for parents, low wages for workers and difficulty retaining those employed in the sector.
“As the child care funding cliff—the end of federal child care stabilization dollars that have been a lifeline for the sector—hits at the same time as the end of the fiscal year, child care providers are aiming to do everything they can to stay open as vital resources run out,” Julie Kashen, director of women’s economic justice and senior fellow at The Century Foundation, told Newsweek.

Newsweek