We face many big challenges and we will need strong, bold policies to meaningfully address them. Solving our child care crisis is one of those challenges and a study of World War II government efforts to provide accessible and affordable high-quality child care points to the kind of bold action we need.
The child care crisis
A number of studies have established that high-quality early childhood programs provide significant community and individual benefits. One W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research study found “per dollar invested, early childhood programs increase present value of state per capita earnings by $5 to $9.” Yet, even before the pandemic, most families struggled with a lack of desirable child care options.The pandemic has now created a child care crisis. As scholars Lisa Dodson and Mary King point out: “By some estimates, as many as 4.5 million child care ‘slots’ may be permanently lost and as many as 40 percent of child care providers say they will never reopen.” The lack of child care is greatly hindering our recovery from the pandemic.
To his credit, President Joe Biden has recognized the importance of strengthening our care economy. His proposed American Families Plan includes some $225 billion in tax credits to help make child care more affordable for working families.
But tax credits don’t ensure the existence of convenient, affordable, high-quality child care. And if that is what we want, we will need to directly provide it. That is what the U.S. government did during World War II.
Federal support for child care
During World War II the U.S. government financed a heavily subsidized child care program. From August 1943 through February 1946, the Federal Works Agency (FWA), using Lanham Act funds, provided grants for child care services to any approved community group demonstrating a war-related need for the service. At its July 1944 peak, 3,102 federally subsidized child care centers, with some 130,000 children enrolled, operated throughout the country. By the end of the war, between 550,000 and 600,000 children received some care from Lanham Act-funded child care programs.
The centers served preschoolers (infants, toddlers, and children up to 5 years of age) and school-age children (6 to 14 years of age). Most months, preschoolers made up the majority of the children served.
Communities were allowed to use the federal grant money to cover most of the costs involved in establishing and running their centers, including facilities construction, upkeep, staff wages and most other daily operating costs. They were required to provide some matching funds, most of which came from fees paid by the parents of children enrolled in the program. However, those fees were capped. In the fall of 1943, the FWA established a ceiling on fees of 50 cents per child per day (about $7 now), which was raised to 75 cents in July 1945. And those fees included snacks, lunch, and in some cases, dinner as well.
The only enrollment requirement was a mother’s employment status: she had to work a job considered important to the war effort, and this was not limited to military production. Center hours varied, but many accommodated the country’s round-the-clock manufacturing schedule, staying open 24 hours a day, six days a week.
A 2013 IZA Institude of Labor Economics study of the long-term effects on mothers and children from use of Lanham centers found a substantial increase in maternal employment, even five years after the end of the program, and “strong and persistent positive effects on well-being” for their children. Despite many shortcomings, these Lanham centers represented the first and only time in U.S. history when parents could send their children to federally subsidized child care, regardless of income, and do so affordably.
Political dynamics
There was considerable opposition to federal financing of group child care, especially for children younger than 6 years of age. But on-the-ground realities made this an untenable position for both the government and business. Women sought jobs, whether out of economic necessity or patriotism. The government, highlighted by its Rosie the Riveter campaign, was eager to encourage women’s employment in industries producing for the war effort. And, despite public sentiment, a significant number of those women were mothers with young children.
The growing importance of women in the workplace, and especially mothers with young children, is captured in employment trends in Portland, Oregon. Women began moving into the workforce in great numbers starting in late 1942, with the number employed in local war industries climbing from 7,000 in November 1942 to 40,000 in June 1943. The number of employed mothers also grew rapidly. According to the Council of Social Agencies, “of the 8,000 women employed at the Oregon Shipyards in January 1943, 32 percent of them had children, 16 percent having pre-school children.” And Portland was far from unique.
Finally, the government took action. In 1940 President Roosevelt signed into law the Lanham Act, which authorized the FWA to fund and supervise the construction of needed public infrastructure in communities experiencing rapid growth because of the defense buildup. In August 1942, the FWA decided, without any public debate, that public infrastructure also meant child care, and it began its program of support for the construction and operation of group child care facilities.
Termination and a step back
Congressional support for group child care was always tied to wartime needs, a position shared by most FWA officials. In August, after the Japanese surrender brought the war to a close, the FWA announced it would end its funding of child care centers as soon as possible, but no later than the end of October 1945. Almost immediately, thousands of individuals wrote letters and signed petitions calling for the continuation of the program. Congress yielded to the pressure, approving new funds, but only enough to keep the centers operating until the end of February 1946.
The great majority of centers rapidly closed not long after the termination of federal support, with demonstrations following many of the closings. The common assumption was women would happily return to homemaking. Many women were, in fact, forced out of the labor force, disproportionately suffering from post-war industrial layoffs. But by 1947, women’s labor force participation was again on the rise and a new push began for a renewal of support for community child care centers. During the Korean War, Congress did approve a new public child care bill, but then it refused to authorize any funding.
Finally, in 1954, as historian Sonya Michel explains, “Congress found an approach to child care it could live with: the child care tax deduction.”
While the child care tax deduction did offer some financial relief to some families, it did nothing to ensure the availability of affordable, high-quality child care. The history of child care during World War II makes clear this turn to market-based tax policy to solve child care problems represented a big step back for working women and their children. And this was well understood by most working people at the time.
Sadly, this history was forgotten, and Biden’s commitment to expand the child care tax credit is now seen as an important step forward. History shows we can and need to do better.