Employer-sponsored child care benefits -- especially on-site child care centers and child care stipends -- are gaining national attention. The federal government is influencing employers to provide child care benefits, as with CHIPS Act requirements. And state governments (led by both Republicans and Democrats) have been passing substantial incentives for these benefits, a trend which is only accelerating.
Yet the push for employer-sponsored benefits has largely occurred without critical consideration of the costs involved. Delivering child care access via the employer-employee relationship brings up a host of philosophical and practical questions that need to be seriously examined.
A new report, Questioning the Promise of Employer-Sponsored Child Care Benefits, takes a look at these critical questions and provides much-needed scrutiny. Join New America’s Better Life Lab for discussion of the report, authored by child care policy expert Elliot Haspel. The report also explores alternative models whereby employers pay into a publicly-funded, choice-based system that benefits their employees while avoiding the pitfalls well-established by the American experience of employer-sponsored health insurance.
Haspel will be joined by a panel of other early childhood stakeholders who will provide their perspective and respond to the report. Come be part of a conversation that can spark a long-overdue reckoning with the proper role of employers in American child care.
Panelists
Miriam Calderón, Chief Policy Officer, Zero to Three
Erica Phillips, Executive Director, National Association for Family Child Care
Nicole Riehl, President & CEO, Executives Partnering to Invest in Children (EPIC)
Carmi Medoff, Founder & CEO, OnsiteKids
