Photo: Gagan Kaur, from Pexels

On Sunday, Congress hashed out a second, $900 billion stimulus package to help the country weather the COVID-19 pandemic. On Monday, Congress passed the bill.

It’s an investment that includes $10 billion for child care providers who have struggled during the pandemic.

“Although the vast majority of child-care programs opened back up after the spring stay-at-home orders lifted, many daycare center and preschool owners are taking on huge financial losses — both personal and professional,” a CNBC story explains.

The story adds:

“About 56% of child-care providers report losing money by staying open, according to the latest survey from the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Moreover, 42% of the December survey respondents say they have taken on debt using personal credit cards to pay for supplies and other items.

“That’s because many centers are still operating at lower capacities, even as costs rise. The survey found that 91% are paying extra for cleaning supplies, 73% have taken on extra expenses for personal protective equipment and 60% are paying additional staff wages.”

The stimulus will help, but there is, as CNBC adds, an important caveat:

“ ‘Child care is the critical infrastructure that we have to make a significant investment in in order to have an economic recovery,’ says Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.). While Clark tells CNBC Make It that she’s grateful for the $10 billion in funding, ‘it’s just not nearly enough to make sure that we have a child-care sector that survives this pandemic.’ ”

Among the providers who are struggling is Damaris Alvardo. She closed her two child care centers in South Philadelphia, then reopened in May. Public radio station WHYY tells her story, explaining that Alvarado worked hard on safety, “instituting physical distancing and cleaning guidelines, staggering pickups and drop-offs to avoid bunching parents together, and spending tens of thousands of dollars on air purifying units.”

“For a while, the preventative measures seemed to work. The centers, which together enrolled 235 kids, had zero documented COVID-19 cases from May through October.”

But then the second wave of the pandemic hit, and one of Alvarado’s staff members got COVID-19. And the staffer had a grandchild who attended one of the centers and also tested positive.

Alvarado “said she immediately closed down that classroom and contacted families.

But it was too late… Within a few days, 14 children and staff members were sick. That week, Alvarado decided to shut down both her child care centers through the end of the year.”

Families are also struggling. As another CNBC story notes:

“In the tenth month of a nation under the grip of a pandemic, working parents with income below $50,000 remain the most likely to say balancing work and family is difficult, and that they are spending more money and time on child care and education than they did before Covid-19.”

A survey of workforce happiness conducted for CNBC found that:

• among parents who earn less than $50,000 and who have children under age, “68% say the pandemic has made it harder to balance work and family responsibilities”

• 42 percent of these parents said they were spending more money on child care, while only 19% of those making more than $100,000 were, and

• “41% of non-White parents say they’re spending more money on childcare versus 28% of White parents”

For both providers and families, the stimulus bill is a welcome start.

But the next policy step will have to be much bigger. The next step is for the country to build child care systems that are stronger than they have ever been and that provide affordable, 21^st century excellence for families.