TRANSCRIPT: Leader Schumer Remarks At Press Conference On The Reintroduction Of The Childcare for Working Families Act

Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke at a press conference in support of the reintroduction of the Childcare for Working Families Act. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks:

We’re facing this challenge. Too many parents are breaking the bank in order to make sure their kids are safe and taken care of. And when I heard what Congresswoman Wild said that it is $28,000. We pay people much more to handle inanimate things. What's more important than your kids? Why wouldn't you want to pay them more in something that's so important? So that's why we're reintroducing the Childcare for Working Families Act. It's transformative. It's a bill that supports universal preschool, ensures working families have access to crucial programs and guarantees that childcare workers get the pay they deserve.

Bottom line working families deserve access to affordable and high quality care. And we together are going to fight to make sure they have it. The cost of child care keeps going up. In New York, infant care for one child costs up to 22% of the family's median income. Is that incredible? One out of $5, one out of $5, little more than that. It has reached such a breaking point in New York that childcare costs more than in state college tuition, or the average price of rent if you can believe it. And the burden is even more significant for black families where a typical median income family with two children spends 56% of its income on child care. The vast majority of parents over 80% work part or full time.

In the old days, childcare was less of a necessity. When I grew up, my dad was an exterminator but my mom was what they called them a housewife. And every day when I got home from school, she had milk and cookies on the table. She said ‘come back at six o'clock for dinner, ‘where you're going?’ ‘To play ball,”  but they were there. Now the overwhelming majority of families with kids are either single parents, or two parents working. It is a rarity to have two parents with only one parent working. And even then it's very expensive. But it's a necessity in the other situations. So, we need to do something. And it's amazing that 50% of children live in a childcare desert, as again the congresswoman mentioned, meaning even if the family could afford it, there aren't enough spots. There aren't enough facilities.

We saw so many closed during COVID. I visited a whole bunch of them in New York, some of them have come back but not all. This legislation is our solution. It would transform American childcare and early education by supporting universal preschool and ensuring working families have access to these programs. But it goes further than that it would make sure childcare workers get the pay they deserve. And that of course, the most important thing is to get good quality childcare for our children and our grandchildren. But it's also important to deal with income inequality and one of the best ways to deal with income inequality is take people who care for children who care for the elderly, our precious human resources and at least pay them a decent salary. That's very, very important. So the bottom line is that no one who has a job as vital as looking after our children should be paid poverty wages. We Democrats are committed to big, bold solutions. And as Majority Leader, I can promise you that Democrats will continue to fight for America's children and families and we're going to fight until we win.

###