High Quality Early Education Cited as a Must-Have

In his State of the Union address, President Obama said that affordable, high quality child care is a national economic priority. “In today’s economy, when having both parents in the workforce is an economic necessity for many families, we need affordable, high-quality child care more than ever,” Obama said. “It’s not a nice-to-have – it’s a must-have. It’s time we stop treating child care as a side issue, or a women’s issue, and treat it like the national economic priority that is for all of us.”

The President proposed increasing the availability of quality child care and using tax benefits to make it more affordable. In December 2014 at the White House Summit on Early Education corporate and philanthropic leaders pledged additional investments in early care and education.