What It Means for Virginia: Joe Biden’s Plan to Build Back Better and Create a 21st Century Caregiving and Education Workforce

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 21, 2020

WHAT IT MEANS FOR VIRGINIA:
Joe Biden’s Plan to Build Back Better and Create a 21st Century Caregiving and Education Workforce

Today, Joe Biden released the third plank of his plan to “Build Back Better” and create a 21st century caregiving and education workforce – particularly around child care and caring for a loved one. These are issues top of mind for most Virginians, whether they care for their children or aging parents or work as professional caregivers. We are the tenth state with the most expensive infant care, and one in five Virginians are caregivers for family members.

This is what Biden’s plan means for Virginia:

• This plan adopts Congressman Bobby Scott (VA-03)’s Child Care for Working Families, which sets child care spending at 7 percent for families under 150 percent of Virginia’s median income. Limiting child care spending at 7 percent could save a typical Virginia family with an infant $8,315 annually on child care costs.
  • According to the Economic Policy Institute, this also means 38,959 more parents would have the option to work, potentially expanding Virginia’s economic activity by $4.5 billion.
• Biden will provide every 3- and 4-year-old free, high-quality universal pre-kindergarten. This means Virginia parents of 4-year-olds could save around $10,867 a year, which is the average cost for child care.
• This plan will also help the more than one million Virginians who care for a loved one. It includes supporting a $5,000 tax credit, which would provide relief to the nearly $7,000 that Virginia families who cared for a loved one spent in 2016.

Full plan can be found HERE.

Biden will be delivering remarks on his plan to strengthen our caregiving and education workforce at 1:45 PM ET. Watch HERE.