Children Before Profits: Private Equity in Child Care

 

On June 24th, 2024 from 9:30 AM – 4 PM ET Open Markets Institute, the National Women’s Law Center, and Community Change hosted an event to examine the role of private equity in plundering the nation’s child care industry and services and discuss concrete ways to address the problem.

Speakers included the following:

  • Virtual remarks, Sen. Elizabeth Warren – U.S. Senator (D-MA)

  • Rep. Sara Jacobs – U.S. Congresswoman (D-CA)

  • Rebecca Slaughter – FTC Commissioner

  • C. Kirabo Jackson – Professor and Member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers

At the event, NWLC and Open Markets released a groundbreaking new report outlining a policy strategy to guard the child care industry against financialization and corporate capture.

As the consensus grows about the importance of increasing public funding for child care, the report examined in depth the risks associated with private equity capture of public dollars; the market structures preventing child care businesses from supplying sufficient affordable care to American communities; and the policy and market solutions it takes to build a child care system that centers children and families.

“Open Markets and NWLC have taken a hard look at the many challenges facing our child care industry and have homed in on a significant yet underappreciated risk: private equity. For the first time, we’ve examined how policymakers can use competition policy frameworks to the public money intended for child care programs and workers from being pocketed by greedy financial firms,” said Audrey Stienon, Open Markets Industrial Policy Program Manager and an author of the forthcoming report. 

The event featured remarks from leading elected officials, advocates and organizers, regulators, and researchers on these topics, with a goal of providing a forum to educate a broad set of stakeholders, build momentum and attention for this issue, and facilitated relationships between stakeholders working in different parts of the movement.  

AGENDA — June 24, 2024

Offered In-Person and Virtual (Livestream) 

10:00 AM ET Welcome Remarks – Anna Wadia, Executive Director of the Caring for All with Respect and Equity (CARE) Fund 

10:15 AM ET Presentation of the paper – Melissa Boteach and Audrey Stienon

  • Q&A

10:45 AM ET Panel 1: The Vision of Child Care as a Public Good

  • Miriam Calderon, Chief Policy Officer at Zero to Three

  • Dr. Elizabeth Pufall Jones, Director of Preparation and Work Environment Programs at CSCCE,

  • Andrea Serrano, Executive Director at OLE

  • C. Kirabo Jackson – Professor and Member of the Council of Economic Advisers

  • Moderated by Fatima Goss Graves, President and CEO at National Women’s Law Center

11:30 AM ET Break

11:45 AM ET Panel 2: The Threat of Private Equity: Lessons from Across the Economy

  • Eileen Applebaum, Co-Director at the Center for Economic and Policy Research,

  • Aliya Sabharwal, Private Equity Campaigns Manager, Americans for Financial Reform

  • Brendan Ballou, Author of Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan to Pillage America

  • Chris Noble, Policy Director, Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP)

  • Moderated by Dorian Warren, Co-Director of Community Change and Community Change Action

12:30 PM ET Lunch 

1:30 PM ET Remarks 

  • Video message: Senator Elizabeth Warren 

1:40 PM ET Panel 3: Aligning Market Incentives with the Vision

  • Rebecca Slaughter, FTC Commissioner

  • Daniel Nissenbaum, Chief Executive Officer of Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF)

  • Elizabeth Leiwant, Director of Government Relations at Neighborhood Villages

  • Chye-Ching Huang, Executive Director of the Tax Law Center at NYU Law

  • Moderated by Audrey Stienon, author of the Children Before Profits report, Industrial Policy Program Manager at Open Markets Institute

2:25 PM ET Break

2:35 PM ET Keynote Speaker

  • Congresswoman Sara Jacobs 

3:00 PM ET Panel 4: Building Countervailing Power: Stakeholders Holding Companies Accountable to the Vision

  • Cynthia Pinchback Hines, Racial Justice Educator and CO-OP Developer

  • Pedro Bortoto, Researcher at SEIU HCIIMK

  • Clarissa Doutherd, Executive Director of Parent Voices Oakland

  • Mackenzie Nicholson, Senior Director, New Hampshire at MomsRising

  • Alex Han, Executive Director of In These Times

  • Moderated by Melissa Boteach, author of the Children Before Profits report, ​​VP of Income Security and Child Care/ Early Learning at the National Women’s Law Center

4:00 PM ET Happy Hour

Events, Reports & White PapersOpen Markets2024, June 2024, Audrey Stienon, Secondary Feature