Case for Solving Childcare: Public Investment Has Returns for Children, Workforce, and Community

Early care and education is foundational for our youngest children while allowing parents to maintain meaningful, gainful employment. Meanwhile, despite serving as the “workforce behind the workforce,” the child care sector has suffered from decades of no public investment, prompting challenges that were further exacerbated by the effects of the pandemic. Importantly, Wisconsin’s women’s labor force participation also has dropped to historically low rates last seen in the 1980s. Wisconsin Early Childhood Association Executive Director RUTH SCHMIDT will give a child care landscape overview and detail a series of local and state efforts to address these widespread challenges. Importantly, the presentation will make the case that short-term initiatives to address the crisis are merely stopgaps that need to be complemented by advocacy for significant investment of state revenue.