Two DFL legislators promoting a bill they promise will significantly subsidize the cost of child care for “middle-class” families have assigned an estimated price tag for their proposal: $500 million. But they admitted to media during a press conference this week that they still aren’t sure about funding sources and final costs.
Sen. Grant Hauschild, DFL-Hermantown, and Rep. Carlie Kotyza-Witthuhn, DFL-Eden Prairie, held a press conference at a St. Paul child care center on Thursday. All Ages and Faces Academy primarily operates as a preschool and has a listed capacity of 90 children. It doesn’t operate a website or have a social media presence, but served as the backdrop for Hauschild and Kotyza-Witthuhn’s public unveiling of their “Great Start Affordability Program” legislation they say they will introduce as soon as the 2024 legislative session begins on Feb. 12.
The legislators represent swing districts and are both parents to young children. They say the impetus for their child care subsidy program — which will target mainly middle-class families — comes from regular conversations they have with constituents who say they are increasingly unable to afford the costs of child care.
For well more than a decade there has been a bipartisan effort to expand early childhood learning scholarships to low-income families across Minnesota. Households of two parents and two children that earn less than $60,000 annually have access to those scholarships already. Hauschild and Kotyza-Witthuhn believe that threshold is far too low for the majority of Minnesotans who they say pay far too high of a percentage of their income for child care.
‘Equitable child care we all deserve’
Also at the press conference on Thursday was Rep. Maria Isa Perez-Vega, DFL-St. Paul, who said that current child care assistance programs “require that families make near-poverty wages before they qualify” for such subsidies or scholarships.
“These are the connections we’ve got to bridge to ensure that our families and our littlest ones have the equitable child care that we all deserve,” Perez-Vega said.
As they have promoted their legislation in recent weeks, Kotyza-Witthuhn and Hauschild have regularly cited a federal Department of Health and Human Services recommendation that says child care is considered affordable if it does not exceed 7 percent of a household’s income.
In Minnesota, full-time, year-round, facility-based child care for an infant in the first year of life averages about $17,000.
“That’s more than a year of college tuition at the University of Minnesota,” said Kotyza-Witthuhn, who as a legislator and a mother of four children under the age of 9, considers herself a full-time parent. “We are asking young parents who are often at the beginning of their careers to shoulder this cost alone.”
Last month Kotyza-Witthuhn and Hauschild floated their proposal during an informational hearing in the House Children and Families Finance and Policy Committee.
They brought written and spoken testimony of a handful of parents from in or near their districts who claim they are caught in a gap, where they earn too much annually to qualify for existing child care subsidy assistance, and cannot afford the market rates.
Hauschild, who is a parent to two young children and represents the geographically largest and most rural Senate district in Minnesota, said his first-person experience with child care needs and a lack of affordability were a factor in his decision to work on the bill, which does not yet have a funding source, though some Democrats believe they may be able to dip into an additional surplus forecasted in the coming legislative session.
“The truth is, our child care system is a market failure, especially for our rural communities,” Hauschild said. “The economics simply do not work. We cannot pay our child care providers enough to make a living wage, despite the fact that our families are paying more than their mortgages to secure their child care spots for their kids.”
Kotyza-Witthuhn said the Great Start Affordability Program would make child care subsidies of up to $5,000 annually, based on a sliding scale, available for families earning up to $175,000 a year.
“In reality, only the wealthiest among us have access to child care that is actually affordable for them,” she said. “This (program) is about reducing the out-of-pocket costs for families and putting money back in their hands. It will bring us one step closer to making Minnesota the best place to raise a family.”
The Great Start Affordability Program is being amplified by “Kids Count On Us,” which operates under the umbrella of left-wing activist organization ISAIAH-MN. Kids Count On Us has routinely lobbied at the legislature for more funding for center-based child care facilities, even as the state over the last decade has increased regulations on in-home child care businesses.
Will Republicans support the half billion dollar proposal?
Hauschild was asked Thursday by media at the press conference whether he believes the bill will garner Republican support, as the Senate DFL holds a razor-thin one vote majority.
“I haven’t had a formal conversation (with the other side) on this issue,” Hauschild said, adding that Republican legislators from northern Minnesota did attend roundtables he held in his district on the subject in recent months, who he said expressed interest in the general topic of child care affordability.
Last February Republicans in the House and Senate called for a child tax credit of $1,800 for every child in a household, with no income threshold, as part of their $13.5 billion “Give It Back” tax relief program. Democrats ended up passing a tax bill that included a tax credit of $1,750 per dependent, but it was means-tested for households making more than $35,000 annually.
Hank Long
Hank Long is a journalism and communications professional whose writing career includes coverage of the Minnesota legislature, city and county governments and the commercial real estate industry. Hank received his undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota, where he studied journalism, and his law degree at the University of St. Thomas. The Minnesota native lives in the Twin Cities with his wife and four children. His dream is to be around when the Vikings win the Super Bowl.
