You may have heard recent news of the Biden administration’s CHIPS Act, which mandates chip manufacturers to offer affordable, high-quality child care to their employees. This act has the potential to make an incredible impact for the 200,000 workers in the chip manufacturing industry.
But we want to see similar responses being taken nationwide. President Biden has stated that he will strive to make an impact on all communities in this fashion, but that doesn’t mean we need to wait on legislation to take action ourselves.
Read on to learn more about the Chips Act, chip manufacturer child care, and what we can do to make sure other employees have access to the same type of benefits. Whether you’re a family looking for care or an employer working to ease child care challenges for your employees, there’s something for you in the following post.
To increase the United States’ capability to produce microchips for vehicles, computers, and smartphones, the Chips Act was passed in 2022. This plan offers funding to chip manufacturing plants to build and expand. Recently, President Biden added a requirement to anyone who wishes to receive more than $150 million from this funding: child care packages for factory employees and the construction workers who are building new plants.
This action was taken because of the severe lack of quality, affordable child care in our country. It presents families with young children with an opportunity to return to the workforce. In turn, this lessens the worker shortage our economy is facing as well.
The plan will offer federal government funding to subsidize the cost of child care for employees. Funds can be used for workplaces to create their own on-site chip manufacturer child care centers, or to partner with community members to create low-cost care facilities nearby.
Every working family deserves access to affordable child care — not only those who work for chip manufacturers. But giving this kind of commodity to everyone still looks similar to what is being done above. We need more child care providers who can offer sustainable rates while still making enough overhead to profit from their business.
What is the best plan of action to create more affordable child care seats across our country? Opening and supporting in-home child care businesses.
In-home child cares are more affordable for parents and allow providers to take home the majority of their income, instead of spreading tuition across dozens of staff members, facility rent and utilities, etc. They allow parents who have the desire to be home with their children, to rejoin the workforce, making an impact for not only their families, but several others in their community. They are typically licensed by the state they are in, and can also offer incentives such as small class sizes, individualized education plans for each child, and flexible locations and schedules.
Even the Washington Post agrees that program creation would be the best plan.
At Wonderschool, we’ve helped countless providers open and sustain in-home child care businesses. We’ve supported many companies in offering this type of quality care to their employees, just like chip manufacturers will need to do moving forward. Some companies we have provided this service for include:
If you’re interested in starting an in-home child care as an individual, or partnering with one or more as a benefit for your employees, contact our experienced team today. We offer a proven ability to meet compliance in all states. And our services don’t stop at program creation — we continue to support providers through business support, communications, curriculum, and more. With each of these efforts combined, we can serve as your one-stop shop for child care creation no matter your level of needs.
Image: Little Angels Wonderschool in NewYork
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