How Kamala Harris delivered on child care access in Nevada, has plans for more

Vice President Kamala Harris announces lowered child care costs for working families in Nevada, building on prior federal funding for child care programs and promising more.

Earlier this year, Vice President Kamala Harris announced more federal funding for child care in Nevada through the Child Care & Development Block Grant (CCDBG). 

Now, she’s promising even more. 

Her newly announced economic policy agenda pledges even more support for families in the near future, if she’s elected president.

To support working families, Harris is proposing expanding economic relief to millions of families, and parents with new children by expanding the Child Tax Credit, in part, to help families afford the rising cost of child care. 

“We will provide $6,000 in tax relief to families during the first year of a child’s life,” Harris said during a speech last week.

After the first year of their child’s life, families would get $3,600 annually until their child reaches age 6, at which point they would get $3,000 per year until their child turned 18.

These issues are personal for Harris.

“My mother was a breast cancer researcher, and she would work long days and often on weekends. And when she did, my sister and I would walk two doors down to the home of Mrs. Regina Shelton,” Harris said in a speech last year. “Ms. Shelton ran a childcare center, and she became a second mother to my sister and me. My mother often said that but for Mrs. Shelton she would never have been able to do the work that she did. Those are the stakes of this work: bringing childcare to all families who need it.”

Harris has a long track record of supporting issues and funding impacting women and children. In her career as District Attorney of San Francisco, as Attorney General of California, and as a US Senator, Harris focused on crimes against women and children; established the Bureau of Children’s Justice in California; and sponsored a bill that sought to align school and work hours, expand after-school and summer programs, and guarantee paid leave for parents and caregivers. 

How CCDBG benefits Nevada families

The CCDBG program directly reduces the financial burden of child care for low-income working families in Nevada. More specifically, it helps by:

• Capping child care copays for participating families at less than 7% of income;
• Encouraging states to eliminate copays for families of children with disabilities, experiencing homelessness, in foster care, in Head Start, and for families below 150% of federal poverty level;
• Stabilizing and improving child care homes and centers by directing states to pay child care providers fairly and on time;
• Making it easier for families to access CCDBG subsidies through online enrollment and presumptive eligibility.

Federal funding for Nevada child care

The Biden-Harris administration’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), passed in 2021 to provide vital financial support to communities and families suffering from COVID-19, granted $222 million to the Child Care Stabilization program for Nevada. These federal funds helped almost 1,000 child care programs stay open, so working families can access high quality care.

Learn more about how ARPA funds are used to support child care in Nevada here.