What Has André Carson Done On Childcare?

Indianapolis Families Are Being Crushed by Childcare Costs. 18 Years. No Comprehensive Solution.

Monday, April 13

​

Indianapolis, IN — 

Childcare in Indianapolis costs more than college.

 

The average annual cost of infant care in Marion County exceeds $12,000. For a family with two young children, childcare can consume 30, 40, even 50 percent of household income—making it not a line item in the family budget but the line item that determines whether both parents can work, whether the family can save, whether economic mobility is possible at all or just a phrase politicians use at campaign events.

 

This isn’t a niche problem affecting a small slice of Indianapolis families. It’s a structural crisis that touches every working family with young children in this district. It shapes decisions about whether to have children, whether to stay in the workforce, whether to take a better job across town or stay close to the one reliable provider you finally found. It’s the invisible weight under which Indianapolis working families are quietly being crushed.

 

The childcare crisis is also an economic crisis. When parents—disproportionately mothers—leave the workforce because childcare costs more than their salary, the economy loses their productivity, their earning potential, and their long-term contributions. When childcare providers—some of the lowest-paid workers in the American economy despite the complexity and importance of their work—can’t earn a living wage, the sector experiences chronic instability, closures, and staffing shortages that make the access problem worse. The childcare market is broken at both ends simultaneously and the federal government has the tools to fix it.

 

André Carson has represented this city for 18 years.

 

He voted for the American Rescue Plan's childcare stabilization funding, real money that helped keep providers open during the pandemic. He has expressed support for universal pre-K and expanded childcare access in public statements. He supported the Build Back Better Act, which included historic childcare investment, when it came to the House floor.

 

Build Back Better failed in the Senate. The childcare stabilization funding expired. Provider closures accelerated. Costs continued to rise. And the congressman representing one of the most childcare-burdened cities in the Midwest hasn’t made a sustained, visible, public fight for permanent childcare investment a defining priority of his tenure.

 

What serious federal childcare advocacy looks like is authoring or championing legislation that makes childcare affordable as a matter of federal policy not as a provision in a larger bill that dies in the Senate, but as a standalone fight that builds public pressure and political will over time. Pushing for expanded Child Care and Development Block Grant funding that reaches Indianapolis providers and families. Fighting for a childcare workforce wage floor that stabilizes the sector from the supply side. Using the platform of a congressional office to make Indianapolis's childcare crisis a nationally visible issue that demands a federal response.

 

That fight hasn’t been waged with the urgency this crisis demands.

 

The Indianapolis parent who can’t return to work because childcare costs more than her paycheck. The childcare provider who closed her doors because stabilization funding expired and she couldn’t make the numbers work. The infant on a waitlist for a licensed provider in a neighborhood where half the centers have closed in the last three years. These are the constituents a congressman is supposed to fight for and not just vote for when the bill arrives, but fight for every day in between.

 

"Childcare in Indianapolis costs more than college in-state," Hornedo said. "Working families in this district are making impossible choices every single day between work and care, between economic mobility and the stability their children need. André Carson has cast the right votes when the bills came to the floor. But Build Back Better failed, stabilization funding expired, costs kept rising, and the fight hasn’t been visible at the scale this crisis demands. Indianapolis families and the providers who serve them deserve a congressman who treats affordable childcare as the economic emergency it is. Not a talking point. A fight."

​

--

 

This is part of the Hornedo campaign's daily accountability series, What Has André Carson Done?, running through May 1st. Learn more at georgehornedo.com.

Indianapolis deserves more than a vote in Washington. It deserves a congressman who uses the full platform of the office to fight for federal resources, to force the conversation at every level of government, and to show up for this community before the cameras arrive. That's the standard. That's what's been missing.

​

RECORD CHECK: The Center for Effective Lawmaking ranks Congressman Carson 197th out of 220 House Democrats in legislative effectiveness. Of his claimed 22 bills signed into law, 2 are standalone enacted bills—the Ariel Rios Federal Building naming and the Kennedy-King National Commemorative Site Act. 

73% of Congressman Carson's campaign funding comes from PACs, much of it from corporate PACs including AES Indiana, BlackRock, and defense contractors. Only 7% comes from small-dollar donors.

​

When Julia Carson held this seat, Indianapolis was a competitive Democratic stronghold that helped power statewide wins. Under André Carson, the 7th Congressional District has become the worst in Indiana for voter turnout and Democrats haven't won statewide since 2012.