Sponsored by:
Assemblywoman VERLINA REYNOLDS-JACKSON
District 15 (Hunterdon and Mercer)
Assemblywoman BRITNEE N. TIMBERLAKE
District 34 (Essex and Passaic)
Assemblyman REGINALD W. ATKINS
District 20 (Union)
Co-Sponsored by:
Assemblyman Benson and Assemblywoman McKnight
SYNOPSIS
Establishes Employer-Based Child Care Assistance Partnership Program in DCF.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
As introduced.
An Act establishing an employer-based child care assistance partnership program and supplementing P.L.1983, c.492 (C.30:5B-1 et seq.).
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. The Legislature finds and declares that:
a. One of the primary barriers for parents seeking to enter the workforce is lack of access to affordable child care.
b. According to McKinseys American Opportunity Survey, an online survey which was released in May of 2021, only 39 percent of respondents who had incomes below $50,000 and children at home said they could afford child care.
c. Although the lack of affordable child care was a barrier for many working parents long before the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the resulting public health emergency, the pandemic required these parents to juggle jobs and caregiving responsibilities when child care centers closed or pandemic-related restrictions limited the number of children the centers were allowed to serve.
d. A 2020 survey conducted by Care@Work of 1,000 working parents with children under the age of 15 showed that 73 percent were considering making major changes at work, such as revising their schedules (44 percent), looking for a different job
(21 percent), or leaving the workforce entirely (15 percent), so the parents could focus on providing child care.
e. Working women are most adversely affected by the lack of accessible child care. Although women make up less than half of the nations workforce, they accounted for a majority of the decrease in the labor force during the first year of the pandemic. Data gathered by the Pew Research Center showed that between February 2020 and February 2021, 2.4 million women left the workforce, compared with 1.8 million men.
f. Businesses have a vested interest in ensuring that their employees can access and afford child care. When companies offer child care benefits, they see increased employee retention and loyalty, improved productivity, and a better workplace environment. Despite the clear advantages, in 2020, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated just 11 percent of all workers had access to employer-provided child care, and those with lower incomes were less likely to receive child care benefits.
g. Offering benefits such as the subsidization of child care for a companys employees or the establishment of employer-provided spending accounts designed to cover the cost, in part or in full, of child care-related expenses, can remove a major barrier to workforce participation and help attract and retain employees with children.
h. Therefore, it is in the best interest of the State to establish an employer-based child care assistance partnership program that incentivizes employers to contribute to an employees child care costs, encourages the State to provide matching funds against such contributions to make child care more affordable for working parents, and ensures that the children of this State have access to high-quality child care services.
2. As used in this act:
Child care provider means a licensed child care center or a registered family child care provider which has achieved a Grow NJ Kids rating of at least three.
Contribution means a direct payment made by an employer or through a third-party vendor to a child care provider to subsidize an employees eligible child care costs.
Department means the Department of Children and Families.
Eligible child care costs means any cost incurred by a person for services rendered by a child care provider.
Employee means a person engaged in service to an employer in the business of the employer for compensation.
Employer means any person, firm, business, educational institution, nonprofit agency, corporation, limited liability company or other entity that employs employees in the State.
Fund means the Employer-Based Child Care Assistance Partnership Fund established pursuant to section 6 of this act.
Grow NJ Kids means New Jerseys quality rating improvement system designed to raise the quality of child care and early learning programs.
Program means the Employer-Based Child Care Assistance Partnership Program established pursuant to section 3 of this act.
State match means a direct payment made to a child care provider by the Department of Children and Families from the Employer-Based Child Care Assistance Partnership Program Fund pursuant to section 6 of this act.
State median household income means the most recent estimate available of real median house income for the State of New Jersey, as determined by the United States Census Bureau, and adjusted for family size.
3. a. There is established
the Employer-Based Child Care Assistance Partnership Program in the Department
of Children and Families. The purpose of the program shall be to incentivize
employers to contribute to an employees child care costs, for the State to provide
matching funds against such contributions, and to ensure that for working
parents of this State and their children have access to affordable, high-quality
child care services. Participation in the program shall be voluntary.
b. The department shall:
(1) regulate and oversee the activities associated with the program;
(2) prepare, make available, and process an application and standardized certification form to be used by an employer to enter into an agreement with an employee and the employees child care provider to contribute to the employees child care costs pursuant to section 4 of this act, which certification form shall include the:
(a) name, address, and size of the employer;
(b) name and telephone number of the person who will be the point of contact for the employer regarding compliance with the provisions of this act;
(c) name, address, and telephone number of the employee who will be receiving child care assistance from the employer pursuant to section 4 of this act;
(d) name and address of the employees child care provider;
(e) name and telephone number of the person who will be the point of contact for the child care provider regarding compliance with the provisions of this act;
(f) total amount and frequency of the contribution to be paid by the employer to the employees child care provider;
(g) total amount and frequency of a co-payment to be paid by an employee to the employees child care provider, if applicable;