ARCHIVED: 2020 CHILD POLICY: AN OPPORTUNITY TO HEAL AMERICA

The $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus and recovery legislation will pump needed funding into the economy to provide economic support to Americans, support essential workers, and advance a major vaccination and response effort to COVID-19 – but it really does much more. 

[TO DOWNLOAD EXCERPTS FROM THE PRESIDENT'S AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN SPECIFIC TO CHILDREN, CLICK IN SECTION ABOVE ]

It puts into place major components of an overall agenda for children and families to reduce child poverty by more than half, provide higher quality and more affordable child care, provide family leave, make strategic investments in public education to promote equity, establish a community-based public health and resilience workforce, and take steps to strengthen primary and preventive child health. Most of these provisions have bipartisan support and represent strong first steps to “build back better” society’s infrastructure for supporting families in raising their children.

Expanding the child tax credit and making it refundable alone is estimated to reduce child poverty by one-half. Currently, children are the age group most likely to live in poverty, more than double the rate in most other developed nations.  The child tax credit has strong support from policy experts across the political spectrum and is an extension of the actions Senator Rubio led in 2018 to increase that credit and that Senator Romney is proposing in his own legislation this session.

Providing $40 billion in direct assistance to rebuilding the child care system and expanding tax credits for working families to assist in child care not only makes such care more affordable, it begins to establish decent paying employment and careers. This has strong support not only in the child care and child advocates, but among business groups who recognize that child care is the “workforce behind the workforce.” 

Providing federal assistance to public education through Title I and IDEA enables schools to reopen safely, but also begins to address inequities in financing that have resulted in disparities in children’s educational development. A strong public education system, particularly in poor urban and rural communities, is essential to equalizing opportunity.

Investing $6.5 billion to add 100,000 jobs and triple the number of community-based health workers starts to rebuild a public health infrastructure, initially for a vaccination campaign but in the longer term in protecting against future pandemics and promote healthier communities for children to develop. Many of the higher returns on investment are from providing preventive and developmental services that advance child health trajectories.

This overall stimulus and recovery package sets in motion new directions in federal leadership to invest in children and America’s future. While these provisions and investments represent immediate responses to COVID-19 over the next twenty-four months, they also set the stage for longer-term investments which are essential to the country’s future well-being. 

The Biden-Harris Plans for children and families collectively amount to a transformational shift in federal investments, consistent with  public opinion polling across political party affiliations. These investments are essential to responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and building back economically, not only addressing the impacts of COVID-19 on people working in this sector of the economy but building that sector out to create needed new jobs as well as services.

This $100+ billion annual investment in the Biden-Harris plans must be viewed in both social and economic terms. Those serving children – as educators (K-12 and early childhood), health practitioners, counselors and human service workers – require public investments. Teachers and those in public health departments and child welfare agencies are directly employed by government, but many others receive a large share of their support from the public sector. The COVID-19 pandemic has raised their visibility and their value to society. 

Now, it is time to recognize that investing in them also creates and sustains jobs and investing adequately in them creates careers and family-sustaining employment that strengthens the middle class. Making these investments in the name of recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and positioning society for the future should become a bipartisan agenda. The Biden-Harris plans for children and families offer the opportunity for coming more together around issues and needs that should not divide us.

The Biden-Harris Plans during the campaign for Building a 21stCentury Education and Caregiving workforce should be integrated into COVID-19 recovery efforts – with a particular emphasis upon investing in a community-based health workforce. 

The Integrated Care for Kids – InCK Marks Initiative has made such recommendations in its statement to the next Administration on advancing child health care transformation. The Community-Based Workforce Alliance has described the need for such investments to achieve health equity and build back better in its background statement. StartEarly has posed a specific new federal investment pool for developing such a workforce at the community level specifically focused upon young children. InCK Marks has further described the key role such a relational health workforce plays to advancing child health transformation.

Such investments would have multiple economic as well as health returns – in improved community health, in new jobs and career opportunities in some of the poorest and most COVID-19 affected communities, and in increased local economic activity and supports to local workforces. Such investments are recognized by economists as being the type of stimulus that can, in fact, “build back better,” with long-term high returns-on-investment. Moreover, such investments can be contoured to the specific needs, hopes, and cultures within communities and provide essential bridges to reducing health and other disparities and inequities by race, ethnicity, and socio-economic background. 

For the InCK Marks statement, see: bullet 4:

 InckMarksNATStatementtoNextAdministration.pdf 

The 2020 election clearly showed that this country continues to have sharp political divides and challenges. That doesn’t change the necessity of advancing a robust agenda for children and families, however. It would have been a much better election if these issues had received attention in debates and deliberations.

The Biden-Harris administration can start a new era of attention to children and families, recognizing that America remains culturally and politically divided across race, class, gender, and educational lines. The 2020 election showed the 2016 election was not an aberration, but a reflection of that divide. We have to seek to bridge that divide – and one avenue is to elevate the important issues facing our children and our future to greater prominence. The $100+ billion annually commitment to children and families and the nurses, teachers, social workers, counselors, and others who serve them is a start to the dialogue. The different sections on this webpage spell these out and emphasize they should be viewed as a collective whole. 

In terms of bridging this divide, we must recognize that rural, older, working-class Americans care about their children, their families, and their communities, but many truly distrust a future that seems to threaten and devalue their own way-of-life. They no longer feel that “working hard and playing by the rules” in the way they did is recognized and rewarded by others, and particularly by “professional politicians.” They see the children they raised as threatened, and this angst sometimes has been turned to political anger. 

After the 2016 election, I sought to analyze the views of voters in the upper Midwest toward children and families, particularly looking at those voters and communities that shifted so significantly from Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016. I concluded then that child policy could be a “game changer,” provided that policy was elevated to broad political discourse. The Biden-Harris ticket did its part by presenting such an agenda, but it clearly was not conveyed and discussed to the degree it could have been, particularly in those communities which decided the 2016 election. 

   (pdf) Download (wsimg.com)

That task remains ahead, and one for child and family advocates to take on. 

Attached is my 2016 analysis of polling and voting behavior – provided because it is as relevant today as it was then. What largely did not occur between 2016 and 2020 was implementing a strategy to use what was learned and build an agenda and constituency around child policy. That is a task that is even more important to do today. This website, and hopefully those in the child policy field, will pivot to do so. 

– Charlie Bruner, website manager and FCPA (freelance child policy agitator)

Joe Biden’s plans for universal, affordable, and high quality health care for children build upon the Affordable Care Act by providing a public option and moving toward universal health coverage. His plans support and sustain Medicaid and the State Child Health Insurance Plan (CHIP), which now cover two in five children in the United States and also expand community health centers for underserved areas and for children who may not qualify for Medicaid and CHIP.

In addition, his plans place special emphasis upon advancing children’s social and emotional and cognitive as well as medical health in child preventive health practice.

Joe Biden’s plans include special attention to health equity. This includes an initiative to reduce maternal mortality disproportionately experienced by women of color, consistent with the “Mom-Octopus” legislation in Congress.

Included within the $6.3 billion investment to expand and strengthen community health centers (federally qualified health centers) is staffing for a child development specialist in every center. Currently, community health centers provide primary care for 12 percent of all children in the country, many of whom otherwise would not receive primary and preventive health services. These community health centers often are the preferred choice of care and contribute to the fabric of the communities they serve as a resource and locus for information about and programs for parents and children.

In short, the Biden plans provide increased federal support and leadership in providing high quality health care as a right for all children. In sharp contrast, the Trump-Pence budgets have consistently proposed reductions to Medicaid that would jeopardize the enrollment of children and the services they receive. In addition, they have included elimination of block grants that provide health-related services and cuts to safety net programs, such as nutrition programs like SNAP, that now cover and help ensue food security to millions of children. The repeal of the Affordable Care Act would place many parents without health care, add to family stress and economic uncertainly, and in those ways impact children’s health.

The Biden plans recognize that parents are their child’s first and most important teachers, nurses, safety officers, and guides to the world – but that parents cannot do it alone. The Biden plans include paid family leave that enables parents to stay with their children and have the time to welcome a new life into their home. The Biden plans expand access to affordable child care through both subsidies and tax credits, ensuring children receive high quality, developmental care and parents don’t pay more than 7 percent of their income for that care. The Biden Plans double investments in home visiting and establish voluntary universal preschool for all children. 

The United States lags other developed countries in the investments it makes in its youngest children, and the result is that too many children start school at a disadvantage. Our future depends upon the healthy development of the next generation. The Biden plans commit to investments that ensure all children get off to a good start and are prepared to reach their potential when they start school. Importantly, the Biden plans not only improve access to affordable child care; they recognize the value of providing that care enable workers providing these services with compensation commensurate with their worth. This is essential so those workers have family-sustaining wages to raise their own children, have careers in the field, and contribute to the local community, both socially and economically. 

The United States has led the world in educating its children; and strong public education long has been recognized as the key to our prosperity. Improving public education traditionally has been a bipartisan agenda; but the Trump-Pence Administration, with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, has launched an assault on public education and failed to address the growing disparity in financing K-12 education that leave too many children behind. 

A child’s education must not be a function of parental income, zip code, or political influence. Strong public education is particularly important for poor neighborhoods and communities, where schools can and should be community schools and equalizers of opportunity. The Biden plans further support the development of community schools, with education-related activities – nurses, counselors, and mental health workers – beyond the classroom which contribute to community hope and support investments in children’s development and future.

Specifically, the Biden plans for education would triple federal investments in Title I to equalize overall per pupil investments in schools across the nation. While states and communities play the major role in financing and administering K-12 education, the federal government must advance equality of opportunity through ensuring the educational needs of all children are met and recognizing that different states and communities have different capacities to do so.

The Biden plan also would provide funding for the Individuals with Disability Education Act which finally fully funds it. When well-funded in schools, IDEA ensures that children with special needs receive the education they need for optimal development and are integrated into school and community life.

The Biden plans also recognize the value of the teaching profession not only to their students but to society. This includes improving the compensation, professional development opportunities, and working conditions for teachers, and recognizing and valuing their skills. In addition, the Biden plans support expanding nurses, mental health counselors, and other allied professional staff in all schools and advancing community schools. Students need such supports to address health and social concerns they have and be able to be fully engaged in the teaching that goes on in their classroom. Teachers benefit from having fully engaged students to teach.

The Biden Plans also call for a 21st century approach to juvenile justice, one that stresses both prevention and restorative justice approaches that ensure safety but treat and not punish students. In particular, the Biden Plans call for increasing funding for OJJDP by $1 billion, with a major emphasis upon addressing juveniles with justice system involvement in ways that ensure their continued education and minimize suspensions and expulsions from school.

Children are the most diverse age group in American society, and this diversity can and should be our country’s strength by ensuring the diverse talents that will be needed in the future. Particularly in a world-wide economy, it is essential that the next generation is equipped to live and compete in a multi-cultural country and world.

At the same time, current disparities and racism and other “isms” will only be dismantled if all children have opportunities to realize their potential. The Biden plans place priority not only in equalizing opportunity within health, early childhood, and education financing, but also working proactively to ensure that those teaching children and youth become more reflective of the student population.

The Biden plans make tackling maternal mortality a priority, investing in underserved and often minority communities through expanding community health centers, tripling the Title I program and its commitment to high-poverty schools, and expanding housing and nutrition programs. In fact, permeating all the Biden plans is a commitment to diversity and equity of opportunity.

From birth, children are learning how they are treated by others and how they should treat and respond to differences. They are learning in the context of their home and the experiences their parents, friends, and relatives, have. The Biden plans recognize that the long-term solution to dismantling racism and other “isms” is through investing in equal opportunities for all children to succeed to the best of their abilities while valuing and supporting others in the same quests.

Children represent one-quarter of the population but 100 percent of its future. As Nelson Mandela said, “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than how it treats its children.”

This also applies to how society treats those who make it their professions to educate, provide health care, protect from harm and abuse, and promote happiness and healthy development of children. It applies to how society ensures that parents can fufill their own roles, as breadwinners and caregivers, as protectors and educators, and as role models and advocates.

Throughout the Biden plans, there is recognition that those in the helping professions – in health, education, and human services – must be valued and supported. They require compensation commensurate with the importance and value of their work to society, working conditions and respect that enable them to act as the professionals they are, and career development and training opportunities that produce the skilled and diverse workforce needed to fulfill their roles.

The Biden Plan for a 21st Century Caregiving and Education Workforce presents a plan for building back better that is both pragmatic and visionary. The $775 billion investment over the next decade creates 3 million new jobs in the helping professions and provides them the compensation and recognition they deserve. Many currently are providing direct care in home health and child care services at very low wages and are disproportionately women and people of color. Raising their compensation to provide family-sustaining employment not only enables them to stay in their occupations as a career and raise their own children, it also contributes to the economic life in their communities.

The press has called this plan “quietly transformational” and “the first of its kind” from a Presidential candidate. Persons providing direct care to children and families during COVID-19 – primary care health practitioners, child care workers, counselors and special educators providing one-on-one guidance, home visitors, and many community-based family support programs – have been recognized as the heroes and heroines of the pandemic. These workers will be needed long after COVID-19 – and represent an area where there is a growth in need and opportunity at a time when many current jobs are being automated. While technology and increasing automation of many aspects of production and delivery are occurring, these helping professions require direct, human relationships and must be supported by public investments not only for the services they provide, but as a core part of the country’s economy.

Technology has produced many advances in productivity and efficiency and therefore profits to the private sector, but these also have come at the expense of employment. As technology continues to advance, it will be essential to expand and strengthen the workforce to perform roles, in the creative and human capital development and social spheres – many in the public as well as the private sector.

Budgets reflect priorities. Voter surveys consistently have shown that Americans want the federal government to increase investments in children and place this at the top of their list of priorities for the next President to address (see: https://storage.googleapis.com/wzukusers/user-22867503/documents/32fa577823d94ab681db82fe91134e8b/IowaPollFindingspdf.pdfs).

First Focus, a leading national nonprofit and nonpartisan child advocacy organization, annually publishes The Children’s Budget, summarizing both the current federal budget expenditures on children and the next budget submitted by the President. For comparison on priorities for investing in children, the last Obama-Biden budget submitted to Congress (2016) recommended a $26.8 billion increase in funding for children’s programs; the most recent Trump-Pence budget (2021) recommended a $12.8 billion decrease. In the Trump years in office (2017 to 2020), the share of the federal budget invested in programs and services for children declined from 8.2% to 7.5% (an 8.7% reduction). Taken together, the Biden-Harris plans would increase investments for children by over $100 billion, annually. Source: First Focus Children’s Budget 2016 and Children’s Budget 2020.

This website was developed by volunteers. It grew from work by Charles Bruner to provide information during the 2020 primary on candidate positions, both Democrat and Republican, on key child policy concerns. The website, www.childequity.org contains information on its election webpage, 2020 Vision for Children, on six key child policy issue areas – child health, school readiness, school success, safety and security, family economic stability, and equality and inclusion. The information on the website includes a survey of voters on their views on children and child policy and the importance to them that candidates invest more, not less, in children and the future. The website describes these issue areas and poses questions that all candidates should address.

This website draws from that information and the continued elaboration of policy plans by the Biden-Harris campaign. The Biden-Harris campaign has presented a very detailed and comprehensive set of plans that address child policy issues across all the six policy areas. This website summarizes them and puts them into one place. Voters concerned about children and families and America’s future not only will review what is on this website but can go to www.JoeBiden.com  and examine the different plans that address these important concerns.

This website is owned by Charles Bruner and is being promoted by the facebook group, “Let’s Go High #bidenhelpers,” which emphasizes the particular Biden-Harris plan, “Building a 21st Century Caregiver and Educator Workforce.” All labor has been donated and members of labor are represented in the facebook group. Those committed to advancing the Biden-Harris plans for children and families are encouraged to join that facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/3517259281664647. 

The American Families Plan continues the investments made in ARPA to extend the Child Tax Credit for additional years, and to make a $420 billion 10-year commitment to child care and preschool. The American Families Plan is the second part of the Administration's infrastructure plan, with other provisions set of in the American Jobs Plan.

In addition to the American Families Plan, the 2020 White House budget proposed other investments in children and families, including $20 billion in additional funding for Title I, with a commitment to making ensuring equal educational opportunity for all children. It provides continued funding for the scaling up of community and public health investments.

Child advocates have long recognized the public investment gap in the earliest years of life, where the opportunity for returns from investment are greatest. The child advocacy community, with support from many other organizations, has been leading the charge for the size of investments in child care and preschool and in the Child Tax Credit that are contained in the American Families Plan. 

20/20 Vision for Children will be compiling resources in these areas, but other organizations -- the Partnership for America's Children, First Focus, the Children's Defense Fund, the Women's Law Center, the Center for Law and Social Policy, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and their websites provide important resources that 20/20 will not seek to reproduce.