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How Politics Killed Universal Child Care In The 1970s

Women demonstrate for accessible child care at the First Women's March down Fifth Avenue on Aug. 26, 1970.
Women demonstrate for accessible child care at the First Women's March down Fifth Avenue on Aug. 26, 1970.

American parents often have difficulty securing care for their children while they go to work. Child care in the U.S. is tremendously expensive, and in many parts of the country, extremely scarce.

Rewind almost 50 years, and the same problems existed.

But in 1971, the United States came very close to having universal, federally subsidized child care. NPR examines how Congress came to pass the legislation, and why President Nixon vetoed it.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Jennifer Ludden
NPR National Correspondent Jennifer Ludden covers economic inequality, exploring systemic disparities in housing, food insecurity and wealth. She seeks to explain the growing gap between socio-economic groups, and government policies to try and change it.