Child Care for Working Families Act
Latest action. Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Child Care for Working Families Act
This bill provides funds and otherwise revises certain child care and early learning programs for low- to moderate-income families.
Specifically, the bill provides funds for the Child Care and Development Block Grant program and reestablishes it as a child care and development assistance program. It also allocates program funds for states to provide services and supports to infants, toddlers, and children with disabilities.
Further, it revises the program to require each state to, among other things
create a tiered and transparent system for measuring the quality of child care providers, which must include evidence-based standards and payment rates that are based on a certain cost estimation model;
assure that copayments are based on a sliding scale and that no family receiving assistance pays more than 7% of their household income on child care; and
use quality child care amounts for certain activities, such as improving the supply of child care providers who provide care to infants, toddlers, and children with disabilities (e.g., professional development).
It also provides funds and establishes grants for states to create preschool programs for low- to moderate-income children between the ages of three and five years.
Finally, the Department of Health and Human Services must make grants to Head Start agencies to (1) provide children with access to full-school-year and full-school-day services, (2) provide access to additional service hours for migrant and seasonal agencies, or (3) enhance the quality of existing services.
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Introduced in Senate" stage on February 26, 2019. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
4 steps remain before this bill could become law.
The record's latest action, on February 26, 2019: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
- Clearing the committees it was referred to, and being scheduled for a floor vote
- Passage by the Senate
- Passage by the House
- The President's signature. If the President vetoes it, two-thirds of both chambers must vote to override.
How likely is it to become law?
Civibrief does not forecast outcomes and this page has no opinion about this one. What the record supports is a base rate, which is a fact about the whole pile, not a prediction about this measure.
In the 116th Congress (2019-20), 344 of the 14,345 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 2.4 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one is not there yet: 4 steps are still outstanding, listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
Patty Murray (D-WA) introduced it on February 26, 2019, and 36 members have since signed on as cosponsors.
They are 35 Democrats, 1 independent.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on February 26, 2019, 2753 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 2753 days ago, on February 26, 2019.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 116th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2021 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- SenateIn committee, no floor vote yet
- HouseAwaits Senate passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers