Minnesota Matters 9-25-26

Senator, you held a roundtable this past weekend where you really looked at child care, the expenses, those who were providing it.

You had experts that were with you.

It was a discussion.

What did you hear? What did you find out from these experts?

Yeah, we heard from a few families who have really struggled to find childcare in the Northland.

One mother in particular told a story of having to switch their kids' daycare four different times by the time they were three years old.

Just imagine what that does to a child's development.

to their wellbeing, to making new friends and socializing with others.

That's the type of thing that Northland families are facing.

And so I've really made it a priority to look at funding for stabilizing childcare in the Northland so that we don't lose more home providers and center providers, but also affordability.

Many families are spending more than their mortgage on childcare when they're already paying student loans and trying to afford higher interest rates and grocery prices and all of the things that are really a burden on families these days.

And I think that's why you see less and less young people having kids.

That's, you know, a real problem for the vibrancy of our of our communities in the future.

So prioritizing child care is about our future workforce in our communities as well.

Yeah, it's really a two part story, though, too, right? It's not only making it more affordable for families, but it's keeping the good educators that we have in the Northland, too, right? I mean, you've got to kind of balance both of those.

Well, absolutely.

And I just think it's a shame that we aren't able to pay these childcare teachers more, right? Because they are really the ones helping educate and raise kids in the most critical moments of their lives.

I felt the story of a childcare provider for my son who we saw at Target late in the evening working her third job just to make ends meet.

That's wrong.

We need to do more to help with compensation for our childcare teachers.

yeah i know you secured some funding tell us about that

this is really our initiative to provide state funding to child care providers to help increase the wages for uh for again our teachers that are in these roles that are so important helping retain that force recruit new ones uh we added more but it was a great starting place for us to help support our child care workers

But there's also been child tax credits.

You've been working so hard on programs and legislation that can help offset what's going on in Washington.

I assume that's the constant theme for you when you get back to St. Paul?

Senator, you held a roundtable this past weekend where you really looked at child care, the expenses, those who were providing it.

You had experts that were with you.

It was a discussion.

What did you hear? What did you find out from these experts?

Yeah, we heard from a few families who have really struggled to find childcare in the Northland.

One mother in particular told a story of having to switch their kids' daycare four different times by the time they were three years old.

Just imagine what that does to a child's development.

to their wellbeing, to making new friends and socializing with others.

That's the type of thing that Northland families are facing.

And so I've really made it a priority to look at funding for stabilizing childcare in the Northland so that we don't lose more home providers and center providers, but also affordability.

Many families are spending more than their mortgage on childcare when they're already paying student loans and trying to afford higher interest rates and grocery prices and all of the things that are really a burden on families these days.

And I think that's why you see less and less young people having kids.

That's, you know, a real problem for the vibrancy of our of our communities in the future.

So prioritizing child care is about our future workforce in our communities as well.

Yeah, it's really a two part story, though, too, right? It's not only making it more affordable for families, but it's keeping the good educators that we have in the Northland, too, right? I mean, you've got to kind of balance both of those.

Well, absolutely.

And I just think it's a shame that we aren't able to pay these childcare teachers more, right? Because they are really the ones helping educate and raise kids in the most critical moments of their lives.

I felt the story of a childcare provider for my son who we saw at Target late in the evening working her third job just to make ends meet.

That's wrong.

We need to do more to help with compensation for our childcare teachers.

yeah i know you secured some funding tell us about that

this is really our initiative to provide state funding to child care providers to help increase the wages for uh for again our teachers that are in these roles that are so important helping retain that force recruit new ones uh we added more but it was a great starting place for us to help support our child care workers

But there's also been child tax credits.

You've been working so hard on programs and legislation that can help offset what's going on in Washington.

I assume that's the constant theme for you when you get back to St. Paul?