How the Biden-Harris administration expanded child care benefits in Michigan

Harris has also sought to align school and work hours, expand after-school and summer programs, and guarantee paid leave for parents and caregivers.

Earlier this year, Vice President Kamala Harris announced more federal funding for child care in Michigan through the Child Care & Development Block Grant (CCDBG). 

The issue is personal to Harris, who has repeatedly talked about the importance of child care and other family support programs in recent years. 

“My mother was a breast cancer researcher, and she would work long days and often on weekends. And when she did, my sister and I would walk two doors down to the home of Mrs. Regina Shelton,” Harris said in a speech last year. “Ms. Shelton ran a childcare center, and she became a second mother to my sister and me. My mother often said that but for Mrs. Shelton she would never have been able to do the work that she did. Those are the stakes of this work: bringing childcare to all families who need it.”

Harris has a long record of focusing on the needs of families and women in her career as District Attorney of San Francisco, as Attorney General of California, and as a US Senator. She established the Bureau of Children’s Justice in California, and led a bill to align school and work hours, expand after-school and summer programs, and guarantee paid leave for parents and caregivers. 

Help for Michigan Families

The CCDBG directly reduces the financial burden of child care for low-income working families. Specifically, this program helps by:

• Capping child care copays for participating families at less than 7% of  income;
• Encouraging states to eliminate copays for families of children with disabilities, experiencing homelessness, in foster care, in Head Start, and for families below 150% of the federal poverty level;
• Stabilizing and improving childcare homes and centers by directing states to pay childcare providers fairly and on time;
• Making it easier for families to access CCDBG subsidies through online enrollment and presumptive eligibility.

Thousands of children under the age of 6 already benefit from the CCDBG in Michigan. Learn more here.

Funding boost from American Rescue Plan Act in 2021

The Biden-Harris administration has also helped provide direct funding to child care providers. Nearly 80% of Michigan child care centers received funding from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), a landmark law passed by the Biden-Harris administration to provide vital financial support to communities and families suffering from COVID-19 and its impacts.

More than $700 million of ARPA funding was distributed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer to child care programs, expanding the childcare workforce in Michigan. 

One child care program director applauded the funding because of its positive impact on staff wages. 

“We went from $11 an hour to $13 an hour. And then it really attracted people” and “[The grant] was really a lifesaver. We were really able to offer compensation that we would not have been able to offer in the past.”

Learn more about federal funding for Michigan child care here.