Elizabeth Warren Proposes Universal Child Care

Warren’s plan, the Universal Child Care and Early Learning Act, would create a network of government-funded care centers based partly on the existing Head Start network, with employees paid comparably to public-school teachers. Families earning less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level would be able to send their children to these centers for free.

The plan would be funded by Warren’s proposed wealth tax on households with more than $50 million in assets, her campaign said.

“The guarantee is about what each of our children is entitled to,” Warren said at a campaign rally in Los Angeles on Monday, announcing her plans to introduce the bill. “Not just the children of the wealthy, not just the children of the well-connected, but every one of our children is entitled to good child care.”

Mark Zandi and Sophia Koropeckyj, economists at Moody’s Analytics, estimated that the plan would cost the federal government $70 billion per year more than it currently spends on child care programs, but would be fully covered by revenue from Warren’s wealth tax. Their cost estimate was based on the assumption that the plan would produce economic growth by giving lower- and middle-class families more spending money, allowing parents to work longer hours, and creating more and higher-paying jobs for child care workers.

Warren framed the issue broadly: not just as a matter of access to education, but as a means to promote economic growth and address gender inequality in the workforce.

Katie Hamm, vice president for early childhood policy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, said that framing was significant. “It reflects the fact that the issue has clearly grown into the public policy sphere and the economic policy sphere, where before it had been relegated to a family policy issue or an education issue,” she said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.