House passes legislation for accessible and affordable child care

Iowa faces a workforce short-age and over the last several sessions, House Republicans have made it a priority to ad-dress this challenge. Over the years, legislators have worked in a bipartisan way to pass the Future Ready Iowa Act and Last Dollar Scholarship pro-gram to help Iowans access career training programs and advance in their careers. The next step to ease Iowa’s work-er shortage is addressing the issue of child care. House Re-publicans have introduced a robust package of legislation this session to improve access to child care for Iowa families.

Affordability for Families

The high cost of child care is often a major problem for many families struggling to get by. Oftentimes, when both parents choose to be in the workforce they find the cost of child care unaffordable. During the 2019 session, House Re-publicans worked to reduce these high costs by doubling the income eligibility limit and expanding the Child Care Tax Credit to more families. This tax credit is targeted towards middle class families to lower their tax burden and provide more opportunity for Iowans to join the workforce and grow our economy. In her Condition of the State ad-dress, Governor Reynolds endorsed this plan and called on the Legislature to pass this expansion during the 2020 session.

Greater Access to Provid-ers

Another barrier that parents often face is finding available child care in their area. Be-tween 2018 and 2019, Iowa saw a reduction of 18 licensed child care centers, 140 child development homes, and 99 unregistered homes that accept children in our Child Care As-sistance program. When pro-viders don’t have enough open slots, parents are forced to put their children on a wait list. To address this problem, House Republicans have passed legis-lation that will increase rates to encourage providers to partici-pate in this program, create additional slots for children, and increase access to afforda-ble child care.

Engaging the Business Com-munity

Iowa’s unemployment rate is at record lows, and while that news is welcome, it has created challenges for employers. Iowa faces a workforce shortage like many other states. Iowa’s job creators recognize that a lack of affordable child care is an issue that hurts families’ pock-etbooks and holds back our economy. In several communi-ties around the state, local leaders and businesses have worked together to form pub-lic-private-partnerships to offer day care to employees and families in the community. Sev-eral pieces of legislation build on these efforts and incentivize local businesses and communi-ties to offer child care to em-ployees and their communities.

Address the Cliff Effect

A final piece of the House Republican child care package supports an Iowan’s ability to be successful by addressing the “cliff effect” that many families face. The cliff effect occurs when an individual is limited in their ability to take a pay raise or promotion for fear of losing their benefits. House Republicans passed a plan that helps reduce the impact of the cliff effect by providing Iowans with a tiered system so benefits aren’t removed all at once. This plan will allow Iowans to ad-vance in their careers and move towards self-sufficiency.

As always, please keep in touch. As legislation moves forward, feel free to send me comments, questions or feedback that you may have regarding issues before us in the House. I can be reached at linda.upmeyer@legis.iowa.gov or 515-281-3521.