Whether you have kids or not, it's an issue you should care about.
While millions of parents worry about how they'll afford child care, it's a problem we don't talk about often enough in Washington.
In recent years the cost of child care has skyrocketed, increasing by 40% during the pandemic, outpacing the cost increase of things like housing and healthcare.
I've experienced this personally. As a single working parent, I was thrilled when I found out that my former employer, UC Irvine, offered child care on campus. But I was shocked that for just my daughter Betsy, the cost was more than undergraduate tuition.
Whether you have kids or not, it's an issue you should care about. We can't have a strong, stable, globally competitive economy if families are weighed down by the cost of child care or parents can't afford to work outside of the home.
Last year I led the fight to cap child care spending at 7% of a family's income. And while that didn't become law, I'll keep fighting to address our country's child care crisis and lower costs for families. If the high cost of child care has affected you or your family, send me a note, I'd love to hear from you.
Share your story ›››
Donate ›››
—Katie Porter
