How Elizabeth Warren's Universal Child Care Plan Would Affect You

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who is seen as a top 2020 Democratic candidate, unveiled an ambitious proposal Tuesday that would offer low- or no-cost child care to all American families, regardless of income. “How much you make at your job should not determine the quality care your child gets,” Warren said, debuting the plan on Twitter. “Child care should be a fundamental right, period.”

Link to tweet

Warren’s home state of Massachusetts has one of the highest average child care costs in the country — $17,062 per year to care for an infant, according to the Economic Policy Institute. At the same time, child care workers nationwide are twice as likely to live in poverty as workers in other industries.

Warren’s argument for universal child care, though, goes far beyond addressing either problem. It is based on economist James Heckman’s research that investment in early childhood dramatically lowers social welfare costs and crime rates, while increasing tax revenue over a child’s lifetime.

Heckman analyzed two programs in particular before arriving at his findings. The first, the Perry Preschool program, demonstrated a return on investment of 7-to-10-percent per year in the form of “reduced costs in remedial education, health and criminal justice system expenditures.” The second, the Abecedarian/CARE programs, showed an even bigger return on investment — an estimated 13.7 percent per child, per year — when infants were enrolled in programs shortly after birth rather than delaying enrollment until age three.

Cornell University professor Maria Fitzpatrick, who has studied early childhood education policies, says that the “returns on investment” that economists talk about come in all forms — from higher test scores, to lower pregnancy rates, increased earning potential and long-term employment prospects, “particularly children from low-income and rural areas.”

Making the program universal is particularly compelling, Fitzpatrick says, “because we do have some evidence that a universal program is even more likely to have benefits than a targeted program, and in part that’s driven probably by peer effects across children — there are benefits, for example, for children from different backgrounds spending time together in daycare and preschool classes.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/elizabeth-warren-universal-child-care-794737/

[crazytown]

1. Thumbs up.

excellent initiative

[CentralMass]

2. I like her ideas and priorities.

[AwakeAtLast]

3. I bet I won't get punched or flipped off

by Kindergartners.