“Why I won’t support spending another 3.5 trillion… There’s not a rush to do that right now. We don’t have an urgency. Don’t you think we ought to debate a little bit more, talk about it, and see what we’ve got out there?”
– Senator Joe Manchin in the Wall Street Journal
It is time to change the narrative around social infrastructure investments for families. We beg to differ with people like Senator Manchin. It is urgent that our country invest in high-quality care, family leave, and universal pre-K not only because it helps children thrive in high-quality early environments, but because it enables parents to enter the workforce—raising families out of poverty. Remarkably, in 2017, the United States ranked 30th out of 33 member nations of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in public spending on families and children, which includes policies such as child payments and allowances, parental leave benefits, and child care support. A 2019 study by the Pew Research Center noted that of the 41 industrial countries surveyed, only the U.S. did not have a policy around paid parental leave.
Supporting families supports the economy: Social nets are economic foundations (brookings.edu)
