Excerpts
Head Start is the poster child for public spending. The 60-year-old program and its newer offshoot, Early Head Start, currently provide preschool and child care for roughly 800,000 children in low-income families. Studies find that the programs boost kids’ health and school readiness, increase their earnings in adulthood and their chances to attend college and reduce their likelihood of crime. These programs are so popular that many centers have long waitlists, and they’re so successful that Head Start’s $12 billion-a-year budget effectively pays for itself.
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Head Start also connects mothers with other government services, facilitating enrollment in programs like welfare, food stamps and Medicaid. This helps to ensure that families receive all the assistance for which they qualify, lessens the stigma around government support and reduces pressure on mothers to find ways to make ends meet financially or to find partners who can provide that financial support.
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Eliminating Head Start and Early Head Start risks pushing more families into this kind of precarity. And, arguably, that kind of precarity is the point. Because precarity limits people’s choices, and limited choices make people easier to exploit. Sadly, it seems this White House may be just fine with that.