Child Care Takes First Baby Steps : Helping the working poor help themselves

The sleeper accomplishment of the 101st Congress--with all its showcase whining, combativeness, petulance and guile--is that, despite everything that went wrong, the federal government for the first time emerged with legislation to help working families pay for child care.

The three-year $2.5 billion- bill, plus $13 billion in tax credits over five years, is a stunning achievement during a time when astronomical deficits dominate, and often paralyze, congressional spending decisions. The importance of this first-step bill is that it acknowledges the national responsibility--and wisdom--of helping the working poor help themselves.

With scholars of every ideological stripe sounding the warning about the bleak future of the United States if it continues to fail its children, with the nation’s child care policies shamefully inferior to those of other industrialized nations, the serious long-term economic implications have finally begun to hit home.

“The demographics have changed in this country,” said Sen. Christopher Dodd, one of the bill’s primary sponsors. “People are not abandoning their children or refusing to care for them . . . (they) are in the work force because they have to be.”

Other key elements of this year’s budget package include a five-year $1.5 billion-block grant to pay for child care for low-income families at risk of becoming dependent on welfare and an additional $400 million for Head Start, everybody’s favorite early childhood development program. It adds up to a year in which the nation’s children received a little more than the cursory pat on the head.

Some specifics: Through the extension of the 3% telephone excise tax, which had been due to expire, the federal government will give grants to states to pay for a variety of child-care services; some $69 million is expected to come to California. Those services, which must meet quality and safety standards, will help children nationwide whose families earn less than 75% of the state median income.

But here’s a measure of just what a mere “first step” this legislation is: While the Children’s Defense Fund says that about 400,000 children under age 13 will be served by the new child-care legislation, 2.5 million Americans under age 6 are poor. More than half of mothers with children under 6 work outside the home.

Nevertheless, the legislation should enable California to almost double its child-care program. Right now, for example, an infant-care program in Oakland has a 900-person waiting list for 100 slots. Abused and neglected children get first priority. So children of low-income women fighting to stay off welfare, trying to return to school and hold a job, get short shrift. Ironically, parents who don’t abuse or neglect their children are in effect penalized in their efforts to gain a child- care spot.

Now that Congress and the President have begun to recognize some of the not-so-new realities of the American family, perhaps in the next session both can turn a fresh eye toward supporting humane and workable family- leave policies.