A Boston early-childhood educator who struggled to obtain care for her own children will attend President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address alongside U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, the congresswoman announced Monday.
Jaqueline Sanches, who emigrated to Boston from the West African island nation of Cape Verde in 2007, works as an Early Head Start teacher at The Dimock Center in Roxbury.
In recent years, Congressional guests to the State of the Union have become an opportunity for lawmakers to highlight an issue, or even indirectly signal a message to the president.
Pressley said Monday that Jaqueline is emblematic of the widely felt and double-sided child care crisis, where wages for workers are low but costs are among the highest in the nation.
“It's important that we lift up and recognize extraordinary early educators like Jaqueline are doing that brain building work” with small children, Pressley said. “Here we have a situation where early educators who have felt an inner calling to do this work, to pour into our babies, to set them on the best path [and] they can't take care of their own babies. And that it is unjust, unacceptable and completely solvable.”
Sanches added: “I would love to get more affordable child care for parents that struggle like me because I know a lot of them struggle to pay.”
Massachusetts has some of the most expensive child care in the nation, according to 2020 data from the Economic Policy Institute, with the average monthly price for an infant sitting at $1,743 and $1,258 for a 4-year-old.
Over the last two years, the Biden administration has attempted to expand universal and free preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds through the president’s major jobs and economic recovery Build Back Better Plan.
The legislation failed after West Virginia U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, a critical vote in the then-evenly split Congress, objected to its multi-trillion dollar price tag.
Pressley said she viewed the legislation’s demise as a missed opportunity. She said she hoped to hear Biden speak about trying to advance some of the workforce improvements anew.
“That includes paid leave and that includes universal child care and making sure that not only are we providing child care that is quality, that is affordable, that is accessible, but that we do not leave behind this child care workforce, which is predominately women and women of color and immigrant women,” she said.
Asked about her hope for Congress to pass meaningful legislation, Sanches said members need to work together.
“I would like for them to get things done,” Sanches said. “Because at the end of the day, it’s one county and we got to get together and see what’s best for everyone.”
Pressley, who boycotted former President Donald Trump’s 2020 State of the Union address along with fellow progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said she’s willing to “sit at the table with anyone” committed to ensuring that people feel positive impacts of investments and policies that Congress advances.
At least one other member of Massachusetts’ Congressional delegation, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, will also bring a guest to highlight desires for investments in child care.
