When Uncle Sam stops paying the childcare bill

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.5K Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2023

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the United States took dramatic action to invest in child care. Now in 2023, the majority of those investments are coming to an end. Today, we talk to childcare providers about what those funds meant—and where the end of the pandemic-era programs leaves an essential but strained system.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Here in the indicator, we love natural experiments, and in the pandemic, we got quite the natural
0:18.0	experiment when the federal government stepped in to save childcare.
0:23.0	Congress approved tens of billions of dollars to stabilize the industry, and to make
0:27.3	childcare affordable for millions of people so they could go to work.
0:30.3	People like Brandy Neal in West Virginia, her kids loved their daycare.
0:34.3	Summer was especially fun.
0:36.3	Two field trips a week, so it was definitely they had a blast.
0:41.3	And the price was right. In fact, it was free.
0:48.3	This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Whalen Wong.
0:51.3	And I'm Andrea Shoe from NPR's Business Desk.
0:53.3	Today on the show, how unprecedented amounts of money changed childcare.
0:58.3	And how the end to that money, the end of the natural experiment, could throw the sector back into crisis.
1:11.3	Support for NPR and the following message come from Indeed.
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1:27.3	This message comes from NPR sponsor Barclays Corporate and Investment Bank.
1:32.3	Across the globe, industries are transforming.
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1:46.3	to help your business turn change into possibility.
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	...

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