Vice President Harris Announces New Rules for Reducing Childcare Costs

[The pandemic devastated the already struggling child care industry. With half of Americans living in childcare deserts and the cost of childcare continuing to rise, the Biden administration has made affordable and accessible childcare a key part of its "Bidenomics" plan.

Yesterday, Vice President Kamala Harris revealed new actions to lower the cost of childcare for American families (check out the video of the announcement shared exclusively with Marie Claire below). Here's what you need to know about the announcement:

The announcement focused on the Child Care & Development Block Grant (CCDBG), which currently provides child care assistance to 1.5 million children and their families. New federal rules will cap child care co-payments for working families and encourage states to waive co-payments for families at or below 150% of the federal poverty line. These changes will reduce child care costs for approximately 80,000 families.

In addition, Vice President Harris introduced two changes that will benefit the most important, yet most undervalued worker in our economy, child care workers: first, nearly 200,000 child care workers will now be paid on time to help cover child care costs. This is a welcome change for child care providers who are currently paid retroactively, preventing them from participating in child care programs. Second, more than 100,000 child care providers would receive pay based on program enrollment, not attendance.

Finally, one-third of states that still require families to fill out paper applications to receive assistance will be required to accept online applications, modernizing their programs.

Earlier this year, President Biden signed an Executive Order to improve access to affordable child care and improve labor standards for child care workers. The Executive Order specifically targets federal employees and military families. It also calls for raising salaries for Head Start teachers and staff, a program that serves more than one million children.

For more on what the Biden administration has done to improve child care, see my interview with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Valerie Jarrett's op-ed on caregiving.