To alleviate child care costs for working families, Casey, Wyden and Murray introduce Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit Enhancement Act to permanently expand child care tax credits
Senator Murray: “The growing child care crisis is putting incredible strain on families in every corner of the country, and this bill would help get families some additional relief to afford the child care they need.”
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), joined U.S. Senators Bob Casey (D-PA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, in reintroducing legislation to ease the burden of child care costs on working families by permanently expanding the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC), which was temporarily expanded by Democrats in the American Rescue Plan and quadrupled the average family’s credit from $593 to $2,158. The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit Enhancement Act would also make the credit refundable to ensure low-income families can benefit.
“The growing child care crisis is putting incredible strain on families in every corner of the country, and this bill would help get families some additional relief to afford the child care they need,” said Senator Murray. “Senator Casey continues to lead efforts to help lower families’ costs in every possible way, and I am proud to work right alongside him and Senator Wyden in fighting to help make child care affordable and accessible for everyone. Child care is not just a must for families—it’s an urgent economic challenge we must address.”
“We must do everything in our power to put affordable child care within reach for every family, as we did when we expanded tax credits to help families pay for child care in 2021. Child care costs were too high for too many families well before the pandemic and that problem isn’t going away unless we take action to lower costs,” said Senator Casey. “It’s long past time to step up and make the child care tax credit available to everyone at the actual cost of child care today.”
“The cost of raising a family in Oregon and all over the country is way too high, and child care is one of the biggest expenses parents are facing today. People simply need more help,” said Senator Wyden. “Not only is this tax credit an important financial boost for parents, it’s also a matter of economic fairness for workers. The sky-high cost of child care puts way too many American families in a position where Mom or Dad is forced to leave their job to take care of the kids. That should be a choice people make because they want to, not because they need to for financial reasons. Senator Casey’s bill is about giving families more financial breathing room and more freedom to raise their kids and continue their careers in whatever manner they choose.”
The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit Enhancement Act would:
- Increase the maximum credit amount to $4,000 per child;
- Automatically adjust it to keep pace with inflation;
- Save money by phasing out the credit for families making more than $400,000; and
- Ensure low-income families can benefit from the tax credit by making it refundable, allowing families to receive up to $8,000 each.
A former preschool teacher herself, Senator Murray has led the fight to comprehensively tackle the child care crisis in Congress—using every tool at her disposal to make progress for families as the top Democrat on the HELP Committee and now as Senate Appropriations Chair. She continues to work to build the support needed to pass her Child Care for Working Families Act, comprehensive legislation to tackle the child care crisis and ensure families across America can find and afford the high-quality child care they need. She has also successfully pushed to boost existing federal child care funding through annual appropriations—and as Appropriations Chair, is pushing to keep up the momentum despite the tight fiscal constraints posed by the Fiscal Responsibility Act. Last Congress, Senator Murray secured a 30% increase in funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant as chair of the LHHS subcommittee, and she has boosted funding for the program by $700 million in the Senate funding bill she cleared out of Committee last summer in a 26-2 vote.
Senator Murray was also instrumental in ensuring Congress took action when the pandemic forced the child care sector to the brink of collapse. She authored the stabilization provisions in the American Rescue Plan and helped secure a historic $24 billion in stabilization funds and an additional $15 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG). According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the stabilization funds have kept over 220,000 child care providers across the country afloat, sustaining child care for up to 10 million children—but those funds expired at the end of September. One third of child care providers who received a stabilization grant said their child care program would have closed permanently without the grants.
In addition to Senators Murray, Casey, and Wyden, the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit Enhancement Act cosponsored by Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Angus King (D-ME), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Tina Smith (D-MN), and Brian Schatz (D-HI).
The bill is also endorsed by the National Women’s Law Center, Child Care Aware, Save the Children, First Focus, Campaign for Children, First Five Years Fund, Moms Rising, NAEYC, Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), ROC United, Zero to Three, PA Partnerships for Children, Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), KinderCare, and the Early Care and Education Consortium (ECEC).
Read more about the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit Enhancement Act HERE.
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