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BALTIMORE — President Joe Biden’s social spending package that continues to be negotiated includes a proposal to make child care free for lower-income families while families earning up to 150 percent of their state’s median income pay less than 7 percent of their salaries on child care.

Corey Shdaimah, LLM, PhD, Daniel Thursz Distinguished Professor of Social Justice, at the University of Maryland School of Social Work, says these types of proposals benefit the youngest children in the long run. Shdaimah co-authored with Elizabeth Palley of Adelphi University, Shdaimah is available for interviews to discuss U.S. child care policy.

“Research shows that investments in the youngest children bring the most benefit to over the lifespan. Families, employers, and society also rely on parents’ ability to rest assured that their children are safe and thriving while they are at school or at work,” she says. “We recognize this in our support of military child care. The pandemic has made it clear that this is the case for all Americans.”

“Many people think that these proposals take away parental choices, but they can actually provide more options if they support parents’ abilities to stay home and care for their own children or to pay for child care. For this reason child care often receives bipartisan support.”

One aspect that needs to be addressed with child care legislation is assisting providers, Shdaimah says.

“Proposals should include support for providers, who are often neglected. They are a workforce disproportionately comprised of women and minorities, often working for wages so low that they qualify for public benefits, which can make it harder to provide optimal care. I also hope to see provisions for improving quality of care, while supporting accessibility and affordability as sometimes policy addresses one without the others, which can result in unintended consequences such as pricing providers out of the market.

Shdaimah is the recipient of a 2021 grant from the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, together with Palley (Adelphi) and Associate Professor Bwekia Steen (George Mason University) in collaboration with the Virginia Department of Education to study the challenges facing home-based child care providers. Shdaimah is also the academic coordinator for the MSW/JD & MSW/MPP dual degree programs at University of Maryland, Baltimore.

About the University of Maryland School of Social Work

The University of Maryland School of Social Work, founded in 1961, is highly ranked and respected. Its mission is to develop practitioners, leaders, and scholars to advance the well-being of populations and communities and to promote social justice. As national leaders, they create and use knowledge for education, service innovation, and policy development.

About the University of Maryland, Baltimore

The  was founded in 1807 as the Maryland College of Medicine, which now stands as the nation’s oldest public medical school. In response to growing social and cultural needs, UMB’s mission has evolved and grown tremendously. Widely recognized as a preeminent institution, UMB serves as the academic health, law, and social work university of the USM, and is guided by a mission of excellence in education, research, clinical care, and public service.

UMB is a thriving academic health center combining cutting-edge biomedical research, exceptional patient care, and nationally ranked academic programs. With extramural funding totaling $687.7 million in FY 2020, each tenured/tenure-track faculty member generates an average of $1.47 million in research grants each year. The 2,921 faculty members conduct leading-edge research and develop solutions and technologies that impact human health locally and around the world. World-class facilities and cores, as well as interprofessional centers and institutes, allow faculty to investigate pressing questions in a highly collaborative fashion. As a result, the more than 7,400 students, postdocs, and trainees directly benefit from working and learning alongside leading experts as they push the boundaries of their fields. For a listing of the organized research centers and institutes, visit: