Sanders Outlines Government-Funded Universal Child Care and Pre-K Policies

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) unveiled his new child care policy earlier this week promising it would help all families. 

The Democratic front runner vowed to enact government-funded high-quality universal child care and pre-K programs open to every family in the United States, regardless of background or family income.

“Today, caring for children in America is so outrageously expensive that having children is a leading cause of poverty in the United States,” his campaign statement wrote on its website. 

If elected president, Sanders promises to revamp a “dysfunctional system” that penalizes caretakers and early-childhood educators — 96% of whom are women and are disproportionately women of color.

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) determined in a 2015 study that about 15% of caretakers compared to roughly 7% of workers in other occupations lived in poverty.

The Sanders campaign promises to “guarantee free, universal childcare and pre-kindergarten to every child in America to help level the playing field, create new and good jobs, and enable parents more easily balance the demands of work and home.”

In addition to increasing minimum wages for workers, the proposed plan guarantees free “full-day, full-week, high-quality child care from infancy through age three” for at least 10 hours a day supporting all parents including those who work “non-traditional hours.”

Sanders’ plan promises “a quality education, from child care through college, as a right to all.”

In a “60 Minutes” interview with Anderson Cooper, Sanders briefly touched upon his plan’s aim to cover the full cost of child care services which would include an increase of wages for workers and other expenses to help local governments successfully implement and maintain programs.