East Orange mayor attends round table to discuss childcare costs

EAST ORANGE, NJ — On March 28, East Orange Mayor Ted R. Green joined a roundtable discussion held by Sen. Bob Menendez that centered around the crisis surrounding high childcare costs and the gaps in the country’s childcare infrastructure.

Green showed his support for Menendez’s reconciliation bill, which will ensure that any family making less than $213,000 per year would pay no more than 7 percent of their income on childcare, which is in line with President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act.

“Even before the pandemic, childcare has been an issue for so many parents, and no parent should have to choose between sending their child to daycare and providing basic household needs for their family,” Green said. “As I am currently supplying financial support for my niece to send her daughter to daycare, I know firsthand the impact of these exorbitant costs. I took on the responsibility because I did not want my niece to lose her job and, as a result, her ability to provide for her family.”

“As everyone knows, the word that could most accurately describe the state of childcare in America today is the word ‘crisis.’ Between soaring costs, lack of availability, staff shortages and more, an industry that was barely limping along before is now collapsing before our eyes,” Menendez said. “We can start to fix this collapsing system by making critical investments in our nation’s childcare infrastructure. We can cap costs once and for all so that the only decision a parent has to make is whether to send their kids to the high-quality provider down the street or the one up the road.”

The discussion, held at Zadie’s Early Childhood Center in East Orange, included Assemblywoman Britnee Timberlake, Zadie’s senior director Winifred Smith-Jenkins, Advocate for Children of New Jersey senior policy analyst Cynthia Rice and three East Orange parents.

“The issue of paying for childcare is an intergenerational issue that affects everyone,” Timberlake said. “Childcare centers nationwide are facing the challenge to retain and keep the workforce because of the high cost of inflation. As these centers struggle, we run the risk of passing the cost on to parents who are already burdened. As a result, women like myself are having to choose between continuing to grow their family and continuing to grow their career. When childcare costs are multiplied by the number of children in the home, it becomes a decision for one parent to drop out of the workforce and often the woman (chosen to remain home). This begets an issue of women’s rights and women’s progression.”

“I commend Sen. Menendez for bringing the childcare crisis to the forefront and I support his advocacy of our president’s Build Back Better Act through his reconciliation bill,” Green said. “In order to fix this collapsing system, childcare and early childhood education must be treated and funded as a public good.”

  Bob Menendez, Britnee Timberlake, Mayor Ted Green