NPR's Michel Martin talks to Julie Morita of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a philanthropic organization focused on health, about the looming expiration of federal child care funding.

If you buy pretty much anything, then you know that inflation has been a big issue for some time now. But even as some costs have been easing, costs for child care have been climbing at nearly double the rate of inflation. And now parents could be facing what's being called the child care cliff. Twenty-four billion dollars in federal funding for child care expires at the end of next month. That's money that helped keep child care providers at work during the pandemic and then afterward. We'd like to understand what could happen, so we've called Dr. Julie Morita. She's executive vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She's also a pediatrician and a mom, and she's with us now. Dr. Morita, welcome. Thanks for joining us.

JULIE MORITA: Thanks so much for having me this morning.

MARTIN: So I think people who have young children already know that child care in the U.S. can be expensive, can be difficult to access. But for people who don't know, can you kind of put a frame around it? I mean, what is the general situation, and what could happen when this specific funding ends?

MORITA: Right. So, you know, as you pointed out, I am a mother. I'm a pediatrician. I'm also a public health official. And I know firsthand that caregiving really does make everything possible. And what the pandemic did - it really made clear how essential it is. So even before the pandemic, for generations, the ability to afford child care has really been determined by factors such as race and income. And providers are often women of color and immigrants who've not received livable wages or essential benefits like health insurance. So health care costs increased by over 20% from 2005 to 2021. And low-income families can sometimes pay as much as five times what higher-income families pay as a portion of their incomes. So the cost of child care is just extraordinarily high and often makes it inaccessible for many.

MARTIN: So now the estimates are telling us, what about if this funding ends? How - what could the immediate impacts be, and for whom?

MORITA: Sure. The - what we know is that with - the American Rescue Plan Act covered about $24 billion for stabilization of funding for child care providers. And if that funding goes away without any kind of additional support, over 3 million children could actually lose care to access - access to care - and over 200,000 child care providers could lose their jobs in addition to 70,000 child care facilities closing.

Read the full article about childcare funding at NPR.