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Brian Lehrer: It is the Brian Lehrer Show On WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. We continue now with our election series, 30 Issues in 30 days. Now, for the last week, we've been focusing on important issues that are being ignored too much, mostly because of the intense focus on the pandemic. We continue that today as we're up to issue 13, Trump and Biden on childcare. This was already a big issue in this country before COVID with disgraceful wages for many childcare workers and a shortage of affordable care for the parents who needed it to be able to earn a living.

COVID has made things much worse with shutdowns of group facilities to prevent community spread, parental fear of putting their kids in daycare that is still operating. Therefore more closures and more shortages and even more financial pressures on owners, workers, and clients alike. In general terms, the two camps say similar things. Here is Ivanka Trump on a proposal the President credited to her last year.

Ivanka Trump: You've got a three-legged stool, and none of them really stand up perfectly. Parents can't afford the cost of care, a cost of childcare. Care providers are oftentimes making below poverty wages. Also, needing a high level of education in order to secure those jobs, particularly in early childhood education. Then, the care industry themselves, it not a high margin business, so there's not a robust ecosystem of new entrants into the space.

Brian: Here's Joe Biden speaking in Miami on Monday.

Joe Biden: Being a single mom or dad or a family that has two people working with young children, it's incredibly costly. By the way, in the professional caregivers out there, home health workers, childcare workers, are more often women, women of color and immigrants, and too often underpaid, unseen and undervalued. That's why my Build Back Better plan will elevate the compensation benefits in dignity with caregivers and workers, and early childhood educators.

Brian: The sentiments are similar, but how are Biden and Trump different on childcare in ways that would make the outcome of the election matter in that respect at the level of policy and people's lives? Joining me now is Elizabeth Palley, director of the Ph.D. program at the Adelphi University School of Social Work on Long Island, and a regular commenter on childcare policy. She's also the author of the book In Our Hands: The Struggle For US Childcare Policy, published by the NYU press in 2014. Dr. Palley, thanks so much for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

Elizabeth Palley: Thank you for having that. I just want to clarify that I co-authored that book so that if my co-author Corey Stamos is listening to this, she doesn't think I'm trying to take credit for our work deal.

Brian: Very generous. Can you further describe why there was a need for a national childcare policy that had both the Democrats attention and the Trump's attention even before the COVID pandemic?

Dr. Palley: Yes, the cost of childcare in the United States is very high. I mean, it's high everywhere. It's something that is not only a problem for low-income parents but also a problem for middle-income parents. Childcare workers, as you stated, are some of the lowest-paid workers in the country. Over 50% of them don't qualify for public assistance. We have major problems with childcare in this country.

Brian: The Ivanka Trump plan was part of the President's fiscal 2020 budget proposal. Can you describe it briefly, and did it get passed by Congress?

Dr. Palley: The tax plan in 2017, the tax credits moved from what had been 1000 to $2,000. It did pass, but it has hardly any benefit for low-income parents. Whereas a family making $400,000 a year would get $4,000 worth of tax credits, a single-mom earning minimum wage only could end up getting about $75. That's from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities data. That's, that's 11 million kids that we're talking about, where they only can really get $75 tax credit, so it's nothing.

Brian: Is the biggest difference between the parties on this the amount of money they would spend on it?

Dr. Palley: I think it's it is the amount of money. It's also, I mean, a huge difference is the amount of money. The Biden plan calls for $775 billion, so he also calls for paid time off. As well as ensuring that childcare workers are paid the same as Elementary school teachers, that they get health insurance, only a quarter of them have health insurance, but they get sick leave, and also that they're allowed to unionize. Those are all really big differences.

He also talks about a tax credit of up to $8,000 for families with one child, up to $16,000 for families with two children, free pre-school for all three and four-year-olds. He talks about the credit, basically allowing a childcare credit that covers up to 50% of reimbursable costs for families who make up to $125,000. He goes even further. I mean, he just gives a lot more details that families earning less than 1.5% of the median income would pay not more than 7% of their income for childcare.

The Trump plan was really a little bit more tax credit, and that's pretty much it, and he hasn't really bailed out the childcare. Well, he hasn't bailed out the childcare workers or the childcare industry, which is in crisis right now.

Brian: Listeners, we can take your stories or questions on this 30 issues in 30 days conversation, Issue 13, Trump and Biden on national childcare policy. If you work in daycare, or anywhere in the childcare sector, we invite you to call in and talk about pay and working conditions and anything else you want to say about your field before or during COVID. Parents who have used childcare or need it now, call in on quality and cost and anything you want to say or with questions for our guest, Elizabeth Palley, director of the Ph.D. program at the Adelphi University School of Social Work and co-author of In Our Hands: The Struggle For Us Childcare Policy.

646-435-7280 is our phone number 646-435-7280, or you can tweet a question or a comment @BrianLehrer. You just mentioned bailout a minute ago. The bailouts are in the news again because the stimulus bill talks in Washington were put on hold by the President yesterday until after the election, he said-- and we hear some industries singled out as suffering the most from that. The airlines were in the news again for that yesterday, for example, after there was a big decline in the stocks of several airlines. Pursuant to the Republicans upside to the President's announcement. Is the childcare industry dependent on temporary relief during COVID in any way?

Dr. Palley: I think they are. One in five childcare workers have lost their jobs already, and 80% of providers say that they'll have to close without some federal aid within the next year. There was a bill that was passed in July by the house, but it's languished in the Senate. When the Senate leaders asked for some money on childcare, that was a much lower amount. Trump agreed only to provide even less than that, and so it's not clear if there really hasn't been a real bailout for the childcare industry as of yet.

That's, that's an issue. It's expensive to follow the safety protocols, and there's been a loss of income. There is a lot of childcare agencies are run on a shoestring, so they just don't really have the ability, though many were eligible for the Cares Act. A lot of them didn't have banking history, so they weren't able to get the money, or they were denied the money by the bank.

Brian: Though it's PPEs small business loans. Even beyond that, I think you've just said something very important, which is that it's expensive. Even when these businesses reopen, it's expensive to implement the safety protocols that all indoor spaces, businesses, and other things are trying to implement now so that people can be there safely. That's another place that the industry is looking at the government for help, but so far zero on that?

Dr. Palley: Yes, so far, that hasn't come through.

Brian: Before we take a phone call, I see that you wrote a piece in Fortune magazine this summer that said, "Biden's childcare plan is good, but a basic income would be even better." What were you comparing there?

Dr. Palley: I was talking about just the need that families have really, families in poverty. It's interesting, because Biden has since come out with an increased child tax credit that would be available this past month that would be available for all parents with children and unlike the Trump tax plan, it would be available even for those with low earnings. The very poor would still get the tax credit. That was up to, I believe it was $3,600 for families with children, 0-5, and 3,000 per year for kids, 6-17.

Brian: Let's take a phone call, Amy in Manhattan. You're on WNYC. Hi, Amy.

Amy: Hi, Brian. I think maybe I got a partial answer to this question. I was wondering if childcare workers get such low pay, then why is childcare so expensive it's partly because of the safety requirements. Is there anything else that just inflates the cost high?

Brian: That's a great question. Go ahead. Before COVID too, we could have said the same thing. It's not just the safety protocols. Childcare workers are paid really low wages and childcare is unbelievably expensive, such that a lot of people can't even-- it's as much as people are making in their salaries.

Dr. Palley: Absolutely. There's two things. One, with industrialization, many things got cheaper, but you can't have a childcare worker watch too many children or it's not safe for the children. The centers can't become more productive in the same way that industrialization has allowed other industries to become more productive. Another industry that is really expensive is the cost of healthcare. It's a similar issue although there are other issues related to healthcare, obviously.

There are places where the government really needs to step in and to support human services because they are not cost-efficient. There's nothing about childcare that is cost-efficient and it isn't really like, you don't want your child to be in a place that is just really, really efficient. You want your child to be in a place where they are loved and where there aren't that many people so that the childcare provider can actually pay attention to your child. You can't just double the number of kids and expect the same level of care.

Brian: Teroo in South Brunswick. You're on WNYC. Hello, Teroo.

Teroo: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. I love your show. Just a quick disclaimer, I'm a huge Trump fan who will vote for Biden. The reasons why I'm a Trump fan is has a lot of--

Brian: Wait, I'm sorry, just to be clear. Did you say you're a huge Trump fan, but you're supporting Biden?

Teroo: I voted for Biden. I'm a Trump fan because he has financial problems. My concern is that this childcare and free education could thicken the garden and all that, it's going to cost close to a billion dollars so there is all this money going to come and our taxes are going to increase and, there's going to be more financial burden. Nobody is addressing that.

Brian: Teroo. Thank you very much. That's a fair question. Dr. Palley, if one of the main differences between the Democrats and the Republicans approach is just that the Democrats would spend a lot more money on it to provide much more by way of tax credit and subsidy for families that need childcare. Where would the money come from? Would it require a tax increase?

Palley: That's a great question. I think Biden answers that a little bit, but not fully. He talks about rolling back tax credits for real estate investors with incomes over $400,000 and increasing tax compliance but here's the reality of that. As a society, we need to decide where we want to invest our resources. Do we care about children? Because we have a ton of children in this country who are raised in poverty. Many children who can't get adequate care.

We have money. We also have the greatest wealth gap that we've had in generations in this country so why can we not take some of the money from the top and give some of that money to support children who are in fact, the basis of our society? People talk about how you judge a society by how they treat its children and its elders. We're not doing so well.

I question the concern about redistribution as it relates to childcare because I think those kids are going to take care of you someday, either they are your own kids or kids who are involved in community service and community agencies, and don't we want them to receive the best care possible? I think it's a question of resource allocation.

Brian: Let's take another phone call. Here's a parent, James in Orange. You're on WNYC. Hi, James.

James: Hi. I'm a long-time listener. I've been listening to your show since I was probably in school myself. I'm now a parent. I'm in my 30s. I'm a millennial. I would say that one of the issues that not really being brought up is the fact that when there's absurd caps on how much families can make in order to reap some of these subsidies. You're not taking into consideration that millennials in my generation had to incur a lot of student loan costs just to make a good amount of money to live in a place like in New York City.

We are not being supported at all in any of these measures. I keep hearing a lot of tax measures and things that support a lot of things for childcare but you might make upwards of $100,000 and you've incurred over $100,000 in student loan debt per person family and we're being squeezed on all ends. Many people in my generation have not had the gains that many others have had in previous generations, we're just continually squeezed when it comes to childcare. I have two children myself and it's extraordinarily difficult and it's disheartening to hear these caps that are happening for income wages.

Brian: A great point, James, and I refer you and anybody else who's interested in that generational take to one of the first segments in this series where we talked about a generational reckoning on under the umbrella of how to save the middle class and millennials with all the debt and now this kind of thing and lower wages than their parents had for a lot of similar positions a generation ago.

Dr. Palley, I imagine you study this in the School of Social Work at Adelphi, this generational reckoning, the fact that we're at a point where for the first time or one of the very few times in American history, this generation as a whole is not expected to do as well as their parents did.

Palley: Absolutely. I think Biden's plan, while it's not as strong as Elizabeth Warren's plan was in that respect, does address some of that issue. I can relate to that myself. I'm not a millennial, I'm a little bit older than that, but the cost of childcare for my husband and myself, we're both academics was really, really difficult. I think Biden's plan talks about free preschool for all three and four-year-olds.

I know we have that in New York City right now but it is not a national policy. Also, he does talk about subsidies and tax credits that are available on a sliding scale, much higher. His plan is not just about providing support for the poor. Again, it's also about providing support for the childcare industry and for childcare providers. It is broader. It isn't as inclusive as Elizabeth Warren's plan was.

Brian: James, thank you, don't make that your last call. Ryan in Montreal. You're on WNYC. Hi, Ryan.

Ryan: Hi. How are you?

Brian: Good. What's happening in-

Ryan: Particularly what's happening now is my son is in a childcare center for 8.25 a day in a subsidized childcare program. We moved from Clinton Hill last year. [crosstalk] Sorry?

Brian: That's in Montreal and is it good for $8 and 25 cents a day?

Ryan: We just started about two weeks ago and our impressions so far is it's been phenomenal. In fact, these subsidized daycares that are run by the government require a certain degree of education that the private daycares don't have and so as we toured daycares, when we finally got into a subsidized daycare, it stood out immediately on how well-qualified and how well run the daycare facilities were.

Brian: I realize, you're new to there, but do you have a sense of the public policy that allows quality daycare to be $8 a day?

Ryan: I believe they've had it for I think 20 or 30 years. I think I actually read a study in Gothamist last year about the impact it's had on working women. The fact that the program has paid for itself when they calculate how much the government puts towards the program and then how much is gained by the tax revenues by an additional workforce. That's as much as I know about how the policy works out.

Brian: Ryan, thank you so much for checking in with that. Do you know about Canada, Dr. Palley?

Dr. Palley: Yes. There are variations around Canada with the different provinces, but almost every country in every industrialized country has a better system of childcare than the United States.

Brian: You want to go into that a little? Are there any countries that you would use as models for the United States that you would like to see us--

Dr. Palley: I would actually use the American military system as a model for the United States because they have developed a pretty comprehensive system for providing high-quality care. They also have trained professionals who provide the care. It is a sliding scale and it is available for people who are involved in the military. If it's doable for the military, why isn't it doable for the rest of us?

Brian: Interesting. I hear France mentioned as a universal childcare country sometimes. I didn't look into it for this segment. Are you familiar with France?

Dr. Palley: Somewhat? Yes. I'm not sure, what about it, but they have a subsidized system of care and this, again, high-quality care it's available, it's not mandatory, but it's high quality and it's essentially free. 95% of all kids in France attend.

Brian: Before we run out of time. I just want to mention Elizabeth Warren, because I think she was really pushing childcare to near the top of her agenda when she was running in the presidential primaries. I think she talked about it being free for American families. Am I remembering that correctly or incorrectly? Did Elizabeth Warren influence Joe Biden?

Dr. Palley: I think she talked about, if my memory is correct, it was free for some, and then up to 7% for a sliding scale.

Brian: That's not so different from the Biden plan that you laid out because you said that's also up to 7% of your income and then it's dropped. Right?

Dr. Palley: I think provided it's only kept up to $125,000, For Elizabeth Warren, I don't believe it was capped for anybody, but it wouldn't be more than 7%.

Brian: I see. Very interesting. That's Issue 13 in our election series, 30 issues in 30 days. As for the last week, we've been focusing on important issues that are being ignored too much, mostly because of the intense focus on the pandemic. Today we talked about childcare as an issue in the presidential race. With Dr. Elizabeth Palley from the Adelphi University who is also co-author of the book-- I don't have it in front of me. You want to say it?

Dr. Palley: In Our Hands: The Struggle for US Childcare Policy.

Brian: Thank you for taking us in your hands.

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