SEATTLE — For 35 years now, Marji Hayner has run Marji’s House, an in-home daycare for about two dozen children in West Seattle.
The pandemic moved them fully outside into an expansive backyard filled with play structures and toys. But at the same time, impacts of the coronavirus exposed already growing cracks in America’s childcare systems.
Hayner said she has struggled to balance paying her staff a fair and competitive wage while remaining profitable. Compounding that, she hears from parents about the incredible burden the cost of childcare has become.
“It’s trying to figure it out as you go along,” she said.
Hayner was featured by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) as a ‘virtual guest’ for President Joe Biden’s address to joint session of Congress Wednesday night. When early pandemic shutdowns led her enrollment to drop, and she struggled to receive unemployment, she said Jayapal’s office helped connect her to the right resources.
She ended up receiving help under the CARES Act and American Rescue Plan, and stands to benefit from the just-announced American Families Plan, a $1.8 trillion proposal focused on education access, childcare affordability, and helping women remain in or re-enter the workforce.
More than 2 million women have left their jobs since the start of the pandemic, often to care for others in their household left without options while schools and daycares closed. People leaving the workforce because of childcare access creates issues not just for individuals, experts have said, but for the economy at large as well.
The Families Plan would raise taxes for the top 1% of earners from 37% to 39.6%, reversing Trump-era cuts. The White House said it will bring in additional funds through increased IRS resources for enforcement.
It would also provide free preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds, and extend expanded child tax credits through 2025, among other things.
The cost of childcare has skyrocketed in recent decades. The independent think tank Economic Policy Institute says the average annual cost of infant care in Washington is $14,554, ninth in the nation for cost. Infant care eclipses the cost of tuition at a four-year public university by 113.1%, the group said, and is inaccessible for many low wage workers.
“Childcare is the infrastructure that a family needs when they go to work,” Jayapal said.
Nationally and at home in Washington, Republicans have complained that the plan is too progressive and costly.
“We're pro-childcare, pro-working family tax credits, pro things that are going to make it easier for struggling families and help them make it through,” said Washington GOP chair Caleb Heimlich. “But we need to have a desire from the president to actually work and listen with Republicans, and so far we haven't seen that.”
For Hayner, she hoped it could help improve the childcare sector for everyone involved – providers, employees, and families.
“It’s been talked about for a long time, but we haven’t really seen it happen,” she said. “I think this might be our moment.”