NJ.com. By Jonathan Salant.

A typical New Jersey family of four with one child and one infant in full-time day care would save an estimated $27,000 a year on child care costs under President Joe Biden’s proposed spending bill.

That’s more than the same family would receive in all but three states, according to the study by the House Education and Labor Committee.

The House committee defined a typical family earning the median income in a state, which in New Jersey is $123,430, behind only Massachusetts, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The figures represent the difference between current child care costs in a state and how much that family would save with costs capped at 2% of its income.

Vice President Kamala Harris highlighted the provision Friday during her visit to a child care center in Little Falls, where she toured classrooms and held a roundtable.

“The pandemic highlighted a long-standing issue, affordable child care, expensive child care,” she told NJ Advance Media in an interview.

At the center, she said 2 million women in the U.S. left the workforce during the coronavirus pandemic, many because schools and day care centers had closed and they had to become full-time caregivers for their children.

Among those at the roundtable was Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-11th Dist., a mother of four children. She said the discussion centered around the problem of finding adequate child care, such as centers that remain open late enough for parents who have long commutes to get home from work.

Even the center hosting the vice president’s visit, Ben Samuels Children’s Center at Montclair State University, had a year-long waiting list for parents, Sherrill said.

“‘Actually the easiest part of my day is child care.’ I have never heard that story,” Sherrill said.

Under the proposed spending bill that Harris came to New Jersey to tout, families making the median income or less would pay only 2% of their income on child care. Those making more than the median income would pay no more than 7%.

The states would administer the program. It hasn’t been decided yet how to cover the difference between the amount a family would pay and the actual cost of the day care center.

“Affordable child care will allow hardworking New Jersey families to get back to work,” said Rep. Donald Norcross, D-1st Dist., a member of the committee. “I was a single dad working in construction and back then it was hard to find affordable, quality child care. With the pandemic it’s even harder.”

The bill, to be passed under the process known as reconciliation to prevent a Senate Republican filibuster, is being negotiated among Democrats. It’s also supposed to address climate change, provide free community college, expand Medicare and address the Republican tax law’s $10,000 cap on deducting state and local taxes.

It is one of two measures being touted by President Joe Biden. The other would spend $1 trillion on roads and bridges, mass transit, railroads, high-speed internet and replacing lead water pipes.

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