When a child is in daycare and preschool with a caring and engaged staff, they aren't just being watched over.
They're learning letters, numbers, colors, but also skills that contribute to their emotional intelligence and health.
How to work with others, how to ask for what they need, how to name emotions and express their feelings, social skills, independence, and how to care for each other in community.
COVID has taken a toll on all of us.
For preschools and daycares, that has meant huge changes in our daily lives.
Children under five are still not eligible for vaccines, and so I've restructured our setting to make things safer.
We spend the bulk of our days outside, regardless of the weather.
The shed behind us was installed last spring after a string of failed attempts with pop-up tents, a few of which ended up in the neighboring yards during a windstorm.
This outdoor sink allows us to wash our hands frequently.
And we have several air purifiers going with open windows whenever we go in for nap time.
A licensing requirement is that your indoor space needs to be heated from 68 to 72 degrees.
You can imagine what that has done to my electric bill.
Quality childcare is not only important to individual families, but critical to our community as a whole.
I chose to keep HoloBlue open during this time because I'm caring for the children of healthcare professionals, educators, and other essential workers, people who are on the front lines.
Childcare should be one less thing that they need to worry about.
That's why the work being done by my union, SEIU 925, Congresswoman Jayapal, and Councilmember Mosqueda is so very important.
Childcare is expensive, and yet most childcare staff don't get paid well.
The cost of operating a high quality child care program is staggering.
Add these costs to the extra supplies and program needing around COVID and it becomes close to impossible.
The work being done by this team is what's helping keep it possible.
Thank you.
Good afternoon everybody and thank you so much for joining us and Jenny thank you so much for hosting us this afternoon but most of all for the work that you're doing to educate our kids and to make sure that we are developing the kind of minds in society with the kind of care that we need.
I also want to thank SEIU 925 has been such a wonderful partner to me throughout the years and of course my incredible colleague, Congresswoman, Congresswoman, City Council Member Teresa Mosqueda.
That might be coming, I don't know, you never know, but City Council Member Teresa Mosqueda.
This afternoon at Hullabaloo I think we're seeing one of the many heroic child care providers across our city who have gone above and beyond to serve our community during this pandemic.
We know that child care centers like Hullabaloo were hit really hard over the last two years and they've been forced to adapt as you heard and to scale back and often, too often, really, to close.
That has resulted in layoffs, it has resulted in uncertainty, and it has resulted in economic hardship for child care workers and for parents alike, with many disproportionately women forced to leave the workforce.
Fortunately, help was on the way, and I am so proud of this partnership between the federal government, our city council, and our workers, our child care providers.
With the American Rescue Plan that we passed with Democratic-only votes in a very narrowly divided Congress earlier this year, and with a Democratic president under President Joe Biden, We worked to put money in people's pockets, which meant $250 to $300 monthly payments per child for families.
It meant $1,400 survival checks.
It meant grants for small businesses.
And with local child care champions, like Councilmember Mosqueda leading the way, it meant relief for child care workers.
Councilmember Mosqueda worked with her colleagues to invest $3 million of the funding that we provided from the American Rescue Plan to cities and states across the country.
They used $3 million to help stabilize Seattle's child care industry.
Because of that, around 3,500 child care workers will be receiving direct payments of up to $835.
But we do have to acknowledge, even as we celebrate this visionary leadership in our own city, we have to acknowledge that the child care crisis did not begin with COVID.
The affordability and availability of child care was an issue long before this pandemic.
While other rich countries contribute an average of $14,000 per year for a toddler's care, the United States contributes $600.
That leaves many families paying thousands out of pocket and even more families going without altogether.
That's particularly true in our state.
Washington was recently ranked as the ninth least affordable when it comes to child care.
Our state's average cost adds up to about 20% of median family incomes.
In fact, child care costs our families nearly $8,000 more per year than in-state tuition at our public colleges.
That is exactly why I have fought and I will continue to fight to pass the Build Back Better Act through the House of Representatives.
It's why I'm calling on the Senate to do their job and pass the bill that we passed through the House.
This historic agenda for working families would expand access to affordable, high-quality child care to 20 million children across America.
It does so by limiting costs so that families don't pay more than 7% of their income on child care.
That will also create jobs right here in our region at places like Hullabaloo, and for places that don't have a $15 minimum wage, like we do in the City of Seattle, it ensures that child care workers will get a decent wage and benefits.
Our Build Back Better Act doesn't stop there, though.
It delivers universal preschool for every three- and four-year-old in America, expanding access to more than six million children.
It guarantees paid family and medical leave for the first time so that we're no longer one of only six countries in the entire world without a national paid leave program.
And it extends the monthly child tax credit payments that have slashed poverty rates in half this year alone.
The bill that we passed in the House also invests in health care, lowers drug prices, and provides funding for housing, home care, climate action, and more.
And ultimately, it is a bill that delivers on our promise for transformative change and investments in working people across this country that allow them to wake up feeling differently about their lives, their livelihoods, and their opportunities.
That's true for Jenny, it's true for all of those in our community, and it's true for families across America.
So this is an important moment for us to celebrate the accomplishments here in Seattle that were done with money that came from the federal government, to celebrate workers and child care providers like Jenny, and to commit to getting this agenda through.
And central to that is no one other than my really good friend, a champion throughout her career, for working people now on the City Council, Council Member Teresa Mosqueda.
Well, good afternoon.
First, I want to take the opportunity to thank Congresswoman Jayapal and Jenny for inviting me to be here with all of you today.
Thank you, Jenny.
Thank you, Congresswoman Jayapal, for all that you do.
Whether it's in the halls of Congress or in the home of this child care provider center right here, these are the leaders that are caring for kiddos.
These are the leaders that are caring for our community and thus caring for our local economy.
My name is Teresa Mosqueda, Seattle City Council member, citywide in position eight.
I have the privilege of representing this entire city, coming from labor, coming from working family background, and knowing firsthand how important it is to have access to high quality child care for every family.
I'm now a mom of a two-year-old.
A two-year-old daughter who every day shows me the value and the importance of high-quality child care.
Every day comes home with new words and new expressions and new ways of showing what she is learning in her child care place.
And my work on City Council would not be possible without access to high-quality child care providers like the ones that she has at Alki Beach Academy in West Seattle.
Child care providers are allowing and creating the opportunity not just for kiddos to thrive, but for working families and our local economy to survive this crisis that is COVID and to actually come out in a more equitable and sustainable way.
The backbone of this economy relies on child care providers.
Without child care providers and our economy, our economy would suffer and child care providers actually make our population healthier.
They make it healthier by making sure kiddos have access to high quality education and learning in their first year zero to three.
And that from public health data shows it equals a healthier community, healthier population and healthier local economy.
This COVID crisis hit Seattle when we were already dealing with lack of access to high quality childcare, as Congresswoman Jayapal noted.
It hit our city when we were experiencing a childcare desert.
And now in the wake of COVID, 7 to 10% of our childcare facilities have closed and will probably not reopen again.
It hit our city when we were in the midst of a boom, an economic boom, yet there were more doggie daycares opening downtown Seattle than there were childcare daycares.
It hit our city, and the result of the COVID crisis has led to a she-cession, as Congresswoman Jayapal noted, because many women, as care providers, had to take themselves out of the workforce to care for their kiddos who didn't have access to care because of school-age needs or for early learning needs.
It's hitting our community disproportionately.
And the only way to come back and make a more equitable recovery is by investing in child care.
That is what the Build Back Better Act does.
That is what Congresswoman Jayapal is fighting for in Congress.
And that is what we are here to call for today.
Passage of the Build Back Better Act so we can truly build back better in this country.
COVID and the she session that it's caused has hit working families and notably women, people of color, black and Latinx communities the hardest.
Those who've been able to keep their job have been putting themselves at risk every single day by going to work.
Again, disproportionately women, disproportionately people of color, and disproportionately lower wage earners.
I want to thank Congresswoman Jayapal for everything that she has done as the chair of the Progressive Caucus, for fighting for the Build Back Better Act, for fighting for all that she's done in Congress that preceded Build Back Better, like the American Rescue Plan Act.
The American Rescue Plan Act that Congresswoman Jayapal and our Senators, Senator Murray and Cantwell, fought for allowed for us to act, as you just heard.
We didn't just receive those dollars and sit on them.
We received the American Rescue Plan Act dollars and we acted.
We made sure to use those dollars to fight back trickle-down mentality that if you just give it to the wealthiest and the largest corporations that somehow it will end up helping working families.
No.
We used those dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act to reject trickle-down economics, to reject austerity and cuts, and to invest directly in working families, like child care providers.
We made sure that there was cash assistance for families, especially immigrant and refugees, who were able to benefit from using those dollars locally.
And then we also made sure that in our Build Back Better Act and the Seattle Rescue Plan, $3 million went to child care providers directly.
Twice as much going into building new child care facilities.
Six million dollars going into capital investments for building child care facilities.
It was Congresswoman Jayapal, folks like Jenny, unions like SDIU 925, community organizations like Child Care Resource Center, who together worked with us to make sure that those dollars went directly into the hands of working family, child care providers.
3,511 childcare providers now have received $835 that will be distributed to the workers.
Each of those workers is critical to making sure working families are cared for and that our economy is safer and healthier.
Awardees of these child care grant recipients are like the folks I just mentioned who've been hardest hit by COVID.
They're disproportionately women and folks of color.
They're disproportionately the representatives who've received these child care allotments.
70% of those awardees identify as BIPOC.
We know we have a huge champion in partnering Congress with Congresswoman Jayapal, but we also know that we have to act locally.
That's why we need more cities and jurisdictions to step up and pass progressive revenue, like the one that I passed here in Seattle with Jumpstart Progressive Revenue, that will invest in economic resiliency and building childcare centers.
And we can do this by acting locally and working in partnership with Congress to make sure that we have funding to respond to this crisis in front of us.
We cannot do this alone, though, at the local level.
And that is, again, why it's so important to highlight how the American Rescue Plan Act has already helped us and the way that Build Back Better can actually build upon this foundation that Congress has already lied.
Build Back Better includes housing for working families, educational and training opportunities for all, early learning and kiddo care so that our economy and working families can thrive.
Without it, our community will suffer.
Without it, COVID will continue to hurt our economy and working families.
Economic prosperity is only possible if we have healthier population and healthy economy.
And those both require child care providers to have what they need.
I'm calling on Senator Joe Manchin.
Senator Joe Manchin is single-handedly harming working families, harming childcare providers, harming small businesses and economies.
This is a critical junction for this senator to hear the cries and the calls across this country.
From West Seattle to West Virginia, we need childcare and we need it now.
From West Seattle to West Virginia, we need investments in childcare providers and we need the Build Back Better Act.
Representative Ilhan Omar, member of the Progressive Caucus, has recently noted West Virginia is 50th in public health, 50th in child care, 48th in employment, and they, West Virginians, support Build Back Better by a 43% margin.
That is true in West Virginia, it is true here, and we are calling on the passage of Build Back Better Act as we get back into Congress in January.
We will not let this individual deter us.
We will continue to stand with Representative Jayapal.
We will continue to stand with the Congressional Progressive Caucus that she chairs.
We will continue to stand with Jenny and the child care providers across this country who are demanding the passage of the Build Back Better Act.
And we are so thankful that we have in our home city of Seattle a true champion for working families and the champion from the Working Progressive Caucus.
I'll turn it back to Congresswoman Jayapal to field questions and thank you for all the work that you've done and that we will win, we will fight, and we will win.
Thank you.
All right, great.
Well, happy to take questions for Jenny, for Council Member Mosqueda, or for me if you have any.
Well, I released my statement yesterday and the senator actually called me
of his own accord this morning.
I spoke with him.
I said the same thing to him that I said in my statement, which is that we spent months negotiating, months negotiating, and the president spent months negotiating with Senator Manchin.
We thought we came to a framework that the senator had committed to, the president that he was willing to pass, and that framework then thanks to the progressive caucus we got that framework there was no negotiation until the progressive caucus said we were going to hold up both bills to get them both through at the same time that led to the creation of that framework that led to the creation of legislative text and we passed both bills through the house the fact that senator manchin went on fox news yesterday and said what he said and essentially said he's not willing to vote for build back better and pull the plug on it uh...
is You know, I think the only thing that you have in politics is your word.
And the senator gave his word to the president.
The president gave his word to me.
I told him today that he has done a great disservice to the people across America, to child care providers like Jenny, to women who are trying to get back into the workplace.
And it's very difficult to trust that he wants to get anything done because I think he has made it clear that he says different things on different days and we can't trust him, unfortunately.
So I conveyed that message to Senator Manchin.
I, of course, am going to continue to work on legislation, but we're also going to call on the president to take executive action and to take it immediately because we can't wait another year or six months for us to pass bill back better.
You know, families are suffering from rising costs.
And the best way to address inflation and to bring down costs is to pass Build Back Better.
We would cut the cost of childcare for families across the country so nobody is paying more than 7% of their income.
We would provide universal pre-K for 3 and 4 year olds.
We would cap the cost of insulin at $35.
How crazy is it that people have to drive to Canada so that they can pay one-tenth of the cost of the price for insulin because we haven't capped the costs?
And that's all in the Build Back Better Act.
And I think if you really care about inflation and lowering costs, you've got to pass Build Back Better.
And that's what I conveyed to the senator, have been conveying publicly, and it's what I conveyed to him this morning.
Anybody else?
All right.
Well, thank you all so much for being out here.
We appreciate it.
Jenny, thank you again for your hospitality and hosting us, but most of all for your work.
Really appreciate it.