Maine AFL-CIO Supports Bipartisan Child Care bill to Support Working Families
The Legislature's Health and Human Services voted unanimously to advance a comprehensive bill aimed at strengthening Maine’s child care system, supporting working families, and ensuring stability for Maine’s early childhood educators. LD 1955, “An Act to Increase Child Care Affordability and Early Childhood Educator Stability,” Senate President Mattie Daughtry (D-Brunswick), would:
- Prevent cuts to the Child Care Affordability Program (CCAP) and eliminate the current waitlist so that more working parents — like fire fighters, teachers, people who work at the shipyard and in dozens of other sectors — qualify for help paying for childcare.
- Boost recruitment and retention of qualified childcare workers by preventing cuts to monthly wage subsides to child care educators in the Salary Sustainability Program(formerly the Early Childhood Educator Workforce Salary Supplement), to prevent cuts in the program.
- Expand Scholarships and Apprenticeships: Continues professional development for child care educators working in registered apprenticeships.
- Continuethe Child Care Employment Award pilot program to cover child care costs for care educators at no additional cost to improve staff recruitment and retention.
The bill faces further votes in the Maine House and Senate and will need to be funded in the final budget, so it's important that we let our legislators know we support this bill to help working families. Testifying in support of the bill, Maine AFL-CIO Organizing Director Sarah Bigney McCabe said that expanding the threshold to qualify for the Child Care Affordability Program from 85 percent to 125 percent of median income the Legislature has helped many more families who were struggling to pay for child care breathe a little easier.
“Far too often, working families are in the position of making just too much to qualify for any help, but too little to pay for necessities. This understandably can lead to resentment, and a feeling that the government isn’t designed to help Working class families,” she said. “By raising the income threshold of CCAP to 125 percent of median income, you are giving hard working families a little help with a huge household expense….We all depend on nurses, fire fighters, teachers, and other essential workers to be able to go to work every day. If they do not have child care, or can’t afford it, they can’t go do their jobs. We all lose.”
Bigney McCabe said that the bill could be paid for by moderately raising taxes on the wealthiest 1 percent of Maine taxpayers.
“Asking wealthy individuals and large corporations to pay their share is responsible and fair,” she added. “Generating revenue through tax fairness can pay for programs like child care that are essential to our collective infrastructure.”
A recent survey by the Maine People’s Resource Center found that 79 percent of Mainers surveyed opposed cutting child care provider wages, but 68 percent supported increasing taxes on incomes over $200,000 a year and 81 percent support increasing taxes on incomes above $1 million.