The Child Care Crisis in America just got some relief.

I'm David Brancaccio.

Good morning to you.

In the latest government funding bill just approved by Congress and the White House,

there is a billion dollar increase for programs focused

on child care and early childhood learning.

Marketplace's Kimberly Adams has our story.

This new funding includes an additional $275 million for the Head Start program and $725 million

more for the Child Care and Development Block Grant.

That's roughly a 30% increase in the funds which states choose how to spend.

One way that states might choose to use this increased funding is to increase subsidy eligibility thresholds.

Susan Gail Perry is CEO of the nonprofit Child Care

aware of America.

Which means that more families would have access to help paying for child care.

It may also be used for things like improving the rates that states pay for child care

providers so that they can attract and retain qualified staff

and increase the quality of their programs. The increase brings the program

totals to about $21 billion. Child care advocates say that reflects bipartisan

support for early childhood education. Julie Cashin is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation.

We got this $1 billion increase that's going to help the programs that exist, but we need so much

more.

Kashin says these new funds show Congress's growing awareness of the lack of

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