Wisconsin Officials Vote to Cut Pandemic-era Child Care Subsidy Program Despite Opposition
Via Wisconsin Watch
Summary
Republican lawmakers on Wisconsin's Joint Finance Committee voted in June 2023 to defund the Child Care Counts program, which had distributed nearly $600 million to more than 4,900 child care providers across the state since March 2020, stabilizing an industry devastated by pandemic closures and reduced enrollment. The vote came over objections from Democratic Governor Tony Evers, who proposed extending the program with over $300 million in state funding, and from child care providers who warned that ending the subsidies would drive closures and eliminate affordable care for thousands of working families.
Critics argued the cuts would force parents out of the workforce by eliminating care they could not replace, inflicting labor market damage that would far exceed the cost of continued public support for an industry where adequate pay and affordable fees have never coexisted without subsidy. Wisconsin joined several other Republican-controlled states in declining to continue pandemic-era child care supports as federal emergency funds expired, marking a significant rollback of the temporary social safety net expansion that had sustained the industry through COVID-19.
