SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
The Obama administration proposes to expand federal subsidies for child care. Stopping in Kansas after his State of the Union speech, the president said that for most parents who work today, child care is more than a side issue.
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PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: This is a national economic priority for all us.
SIMON: The president noted that the U.S. used to provide national child care during World War II when his grandmother and other women worked in factories. And that made NPR's Jennifer Ludden curious about the program.
JENNIFER LUDDEN, BYLINE: If it seems hard to believe, you can see for yourself on YouTube.
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LUDDEN: This grainy newsreel is from Kaiser Shipyards in California. Smiling toddlers do puzzles, paint, listen to a woman play music.
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UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Future torch singers or choir members gathered around the piano, as tiny fists provided the percussion.
LUDDEN: All this plus lunch and snacks for 50 cents a day. Shipyard manager Edgar Kaiser boasted these centers shaped good citizens.
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EDGAR KAISER: That's a job of both industry and community to do.
LUDDEN: How did that happen? Actually, it started during the Great Depression.
CHRIS HERBST: It was really a source of fiscal stimulus, if you will.
LUDDEN: Chris Herbst of Arizona State University says the Works Project Administration first ran day cares. The idea was to employ teachers and also watch kids while their unemployed parents looked for jobs. When women replaced men in the workforce during World War II, the government funded a major expansion. It all ended with the war. Though, in the early in 1970s Congress approved another program of federally subsidized universal day care. Herbst says aides convinced President Nixon to veto it.
HERBST: Some critics of the program actually called this child care bill an entry into the Sovietization of America's children.
LUDDEN: He believes you can still see that wariness today. American child care, he says, is patch work, ad hoc, little regulated, and the cost falls heavily on families.
MELISSA HUDSON: It was just kind of shocking. There was no way we could pay.
LUDDEN: Melissa Hudson says she and her husband both had good government jobs when they moved to Maryland a few years ago, yet putting three children in day care seemed utterly out of reach. They gave up on the centers they liked in favor of in-home providers that charged less and still...
HUDSON: Over 80 percent of my paycheck went to child care and we just continued with the grind in hopes on promotions to balance things.
LUDDEN: Lynette Fraga of the advocacy group Child Care Aware of America says that kind of struggle is typical.
LYNETTE FRAGA: In 30 states actually and the District of Columbia, the cost for an infant in a center was higher than a year's tuition and fees at a four-year public college.
LUDDEN: Fraga is thrilled the president is making child care a higher priority and not just so more parents can work.
FRAGA: What we know - and the science is clear - is that the earliest years are critically important for children's healthy development and so we need to invest in the youngest years.
LUDDEN: Only a fraction of eligible children today get federal subsidies. The president's budget would nearly double that aid, spending $80 billion to serve a million more children over the next decade. It would also triple the current child care tax credit. Funding would come from higher taxes on the wealthy and financial institutions, a plan Republicans largely dismiss. Researcher Chris Herbst says there is another challenge.
HERBST: The problem is that the quality rendered in the U.S. child care market is low to mediocre on average.
LUDDEN: In fact, Herbst's research finds children in federally subsidized day care don't fare well on cognitive and behavior tests. The administration's plan has other measures to boost quality, but Herbst wonders whether the country's willing to spend what it would take for universal high-quality child care the way it once did briefly. Jennifer Ludden, NPR News, Washington.