Retrospective: Childcare and Paid Leave in Build Back Better Legislative Text Versions
Released in October 2021, the Build Back Better Act was the Biden-Harris Administration’s economic framework for pillar initiatives aimed at working families. This included a mix of care and early childhood investments, including universal preschool for all 3- and 4-year olds; limiting child care costs for families to no more than 7% of income, for families earning up to 250% of state median income; strengthening an existing program through Medicaid for high-quality care for older Americans and people with disabilities; and expanding the child tax credit to include refundability. For a time, a Federal paid leave program was also being considered.
While the Build Back Better package as proposed was not enacted, extensive analyses and effort was invested from civil servants, policy officials, advocacy organizations, and other expert communities in its writing. The policy team facilitated two retrospectives with a number of experts to post-mortem the proposed bill language and activities that were completed to improve the text - identifying what helped to strengthen the language, areas where language and program design still need improvement if an opportunity for these investments arise again, and components that require deeper research.
Some of the highlights include:
Coordinators worked to include delivery and implementation experts in conversations and drafting of bill language. Customer Experience (CX) and USDS talent, as well as groups like the New Practice Lab and other non-profits that work on-the-ground with states we able to provide technical review and feedback. User research was completed by USDS, 18F, and US Digital Response teams, and multiple agency representatives were engaged in cross-cutting areas of policy.
Improving CX, reducing administrative barriers, and a focus on high need families first were core underpinning values, including the exploration of how options like embedding automated verification processes, self-attestation, categorical eligibility, presumptive eligibility, and direct certification could be incorporated.
As written, the gradual expansion of eligibility (income thresholds) year over year would have been challenging to implement. The team discussed how this could have been redesigned, and what technical assistance would be required for states to figure out implementation.
As written, there is still a confusing structure of 50+ different CCDF programs, and how these linked up to a new set of CCDF funding and core set of Federal program components requires additional work to think about design for a more streamlined effort with less variability.
Similarly, in Paid Family and Medical Leave proposals, the team considered different “implementation homes” / leading agencies, capacity needed and under-considered to stand-up and run a new Federal effort, and how that program could link-up to existing state programs.
Care workforce and supply-side challenges were still under-addressed in policy and funding.
A future effort would benefit from establishing 1-2 clear, concise metrics of overall program success, with corresponding strategy to collect data that would allow us to know whether we were successful, and a learning / evidence-building plan.
The team pulled apart two very different versions (House and Senate) and discussed the implementation impacts of both versions, a critical effort that can support if there are ever two different versions again.
