Shaheen pushing for increased child care funding

LEBANON, N.H. (WCAX) - New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen is calling on state and federal leaders to increase funding to fill gaps in child care programs.

Shaheen says the Granite State currently has about 1,500 openings at programs across the state. She’s calling on the Biden administration to increase federal investments for both recruitment and retainment of child care workers. In the current budget, Shaheen worked to include more than $17 billion for child care and early learning programs but she says that’s not enough.

“What we know nationally is that during the pandemic about half of childcare centers stopped operating and those who continued operated at only about half capacity. So we have a huge deficit,” she said.

Shaheen says New Hampshire currently has about $30 million in discretionary dollars that can be used to help recruit and retain child care workers and wants state officials to dole those out.