WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators John Hickenlooper, Maggie Hassan, Tim Kaine, Todd Young, and Thom Tillis reintroduced the bipartisan After Hours Child Care Act. The bill would expand existing child care programs, or establish new facilities, so parents can remain in the workforce and provide for their families while working non-traditional work hours.
“Access to child care is a form of economic freedom,” said Hickenlooper, member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee. “Too many parents leave the workforce because they are unable to find child care that is affordable and accessible. We need childcare options that will make it more available for working families. ”
The bill would:
- Expand capacity for an existing, child care program to serve families working nontraditional hours.
- Support efforts to establish an on-site child care program at a workplace.
- Ensure that federal funds supplement current efforts by requiring 25 percent match.
- Require a report every two years on the bill’s effectiveness in improving child care availability.
Hickenlooper has been a fierce critic of the Trump administration’s senseless political attacks on Colorado. At the end of January, Hickenlooper sent a letter with the Colorado delegation urging the administration to immediately reinstate more than $300 million in frozen child care and social services funding for Colorado.
Earlier this month, Hickenlooper toured a Colorado Springs YMCA and met with families and child care professionals getting hammered by Trump’s weaponization of child care funding.
Hickenlooper leads the bipartisan Child Care Modernization Grant Act, which would reauthorize and improve the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) to help provide quality, affordable child care to America’s working families.
Full text of the bill can be found HERE.
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