including family-based care, community-based care, or school-based care, at religious or nonsectarian institutions.

Resource and referral programs would be available in local communities to help parents locate and evaluate quality child care programs which meet their needs. ABC also encourages unlimited parental access and involvement in child care programs and would require States to establish consumer education programs on quality and complaint procedures.

The second complaint made by some is that ABC would create a middle-class entitlement program which subsidizes child care for "yuppie" professionals. Nothing could be further from the truth. While a better child care infrastructure would improve the quality and increase the supply of care for all working families, the bill gives top priority to those at the lowest income levels in our country.

In the first place, ABC's income-sensitive State allocation formula is designed to drive Federal dollars to those States with the lowest per capita incomes. Moreover, 75 percent of ABC funds are for direct child care subsidies, and States would be required to serve the lowest-income families first with these funds, using sliding fee schedules.

Finally, ABC would also provide funds to expand from part-time to full-time programs like Head Start and subsidized preschool, which serve almost exclusively children from families with the lowest income levels in each State.

I am most disturbed by the claim that ABC is somehow anti-religious, that it would prohibit parents from sending their children to sectarian-based child care providers. This is absolutely untrue. Unlike Head Start and other programs which bar Federal funds from sectarian-based services, ABC would make such child care fully eligible for assistance. This was one of my top priorities in introducing the ABC initiative; religious institutions provide onethird of the center-based care in America and conduct some of the highest quality programs in the Nation. The new legislative language which we have crafted in this area should allay any fears people may have about the eligibility of sectarian providers for ABC assistance.

This language has been endorsed by a wide range of religious groups including the U.S. Catholic Conference, the United Methodist Church, and the Council of Jewish Federations.

At this time, we will enter Senator Kennedy's opening statement in the record.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR EDWARD M. KENNEDY

Senator KENNEDY. I am pleased to welcome our distinguished withesses to today's hearing on the Act for Better Child Care. I am particularly pleased to welcome an old friend and long-time advocate of children's causes, Phil Johnston, the Massachusetts Secretary of Human Services. No one has served our State longer in this capacity than Phil. And no one has served with greater dedication and commitment. Phil has displayed this same dedication and commitment throughout a career in social service that began as a social worker and has included service as the first executive direc

tor of the Robert F. Kennedy Action Corps and an 8-year tenure in the Massachusetts Legislature. In Massachusetts, Phil Jounston's name has become synonymous with care, concern, and compassion, and I extend a special welcome to him today.

This legislation is vital to the agenda of the Labor and Human Resources Committee. Assuring that families have access to good quality, affordable child care serves many ends. It will help protect the safety and health of the Nation's children. And it will improve the productivity of our work force by enabling parents to work outside the home knowing that their children are safe and well cared for.

Another important benefit of comprehensive child care legislation is that it will help mothers who are dependent on public assistance to become self-sufficient. We included child care funding in the Family Security Act, which passed the Senate this month, and we will work hard to assure that the final bill includes generous transitional child care benefits. But this is just a first step. We must create an infrastructure that will ensure the continued availability of affordable care. We must create national standards that will ensure high quality. The ABC bill will do both.

Massachusetts has been a leader among States in the child care area, and in understanding how child care can help families become self-sufficient. We owe A great tribute to Secretary Phil Johnston who, as head of the Executive Office of Human Services, has been responsible for coordinating Governor Dukakis' successful day care partnership and for administering the Employment and training Choices Progam [ET], which we will hear about today. The ET Program has served as a model for our Jobs for Employable Dependent Individuals Act (JEDI], which will help thousands of families move up from dependency by providing training and funding for supportive services such as child care.

I would also like to give a special welcome to Ms. Myra Hogan, from Greenfield, MA, who has graciously agreed to share her own personal success story with us, to help us understand the role of child care in promoting self-suficiency. Ms. Hogan is a graduate of the ET Program and is now assisting other parents in finding child care as a resource and referral specialist. I applaud Ms. Hogan, and thank her for being with us today.

I look forward to hearing from today's distinguished witnesses. Senator DODD. I am pleased to have with us today a very distinguished group of witnesses who will discuss the ABC bill and child care generally from a variety of perspectives. Governors Bill Clinton and Tom Kean will give us the States' view on the child care crisis and will offer some useful suggestions on how ABC can be improved to ensure a more effective partnership between the Federal Government and the States.

Our second panel includes Congressman Tom Downey of New York and Massachusetts Secretary of Human Services, Philip Johnston, both of whom have been key players in the reform of our Nation's welfare system.

They will be joined by two mothers from their respective States in a discussion of the critical tie between child care and welfare reform and how ABC complements the welfare-to-work transitional requirements recently adopted by both Houses of Congress.

Our third panel will discuss the need for minimum Federal health and safety standards from five separate and unique perspectives.

Finally, our last panel includes two policy analysts who will discuss some alternative approaches to the child care problem in America today.

First of all, let me welcome our two Governors, Governor Clinton and Governor Kean. We are delighted that both of you are here. We are highly honored to have you before this Committee. Governor Clinton will be representing the National Governors' Association and their perspective on the legislation. Governor Kean obviously can bring some additional information from that perspective and some different ideas on how we might approach this legisla

tion.

On behalf of the Subcommittee and the Full Committee, I want to personally thank both of you for being here today.

Do either of you have a priority on schedule that is important? Governor CLINTON. We are leaving together, but I'd like Governor Kean to go first.

Senator DODD. Tom, go ahead.

STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS H. KEAN, GOVERNOR, STATE OF NEW JERSEY, AND HON. BILL CLINTON, GOVERNOR, STATE OF ARKANSAS

Governor KEAN. Thank you very much, Chairman Dodd.

I want to thank you for inviting me to testify before you in behalf of the National Governors' Association, and I also want to congratulate you for your continuing interest in child care and your understanding of the needs of working women in the world we live in.

Unlike you, Senator Dodd, or my friend Bill Clinton, I am old enough to remember a hit television show called "Leave it to Beaver". Every morning, June Cleaver would kiss her husband goodbye, and then she would package sons Wally and the Beaver off to school, and while the men were away, she would keep house, and when the dinner bell rang, there was June with a smile on her face and a meal always on the table.

Well, a great deal has changed since those days. June Cleaver has given way to "Kate and Allie". We have gone from "Father Knows Best" to "Mr. Mom".

In 1950, for example, only 13 percent of the Nation's mothers with children under six were working. Today, that number is 57 percent. By 1995, 75 percent of women with children under six will work.

Most of these women, as I know you know, Senator, aren't "yuppies"; they don't walk around carrying Gucci handbags. More and more of these women work because they have to-many, because they are raising their children on their own.

In 1985, for example, one-fourth of all working women were unmarried. Even in homes where two parents are raising children, it now takes two incomes to do what Ward Cleaver's single income in the 1950s used to do. It now takes 200 percent more of your income than it did in 1948 to afford a house. You can understand why

there are so many two-income families when you recognize that fact.

And of course, many women also work for the fulfillment and growth that their grandmothers and even their mothers were simply not allowed in this society to achieve.

All this, of course, has made child care one of the most important domestic issues facing our Nation. The simple truth is that there isn't enough quality day care to go around. In my State, demand is running three times higher at the moment than supply. And I think it is going to get worse.

Remember this also. Quality day care isn't a women's issue. This is a work force issue, a productivity issue, and a competitiveness issue. And we cannot forget that ultimately, this is a family issue. So I am pleased that the members of this Subcommittee, especially you, Senator dodd, and also I know Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, have taken such an active and concerned role in trying to get a handle on this problem.

John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester, once said, "Before I got married, I had six theories about bringing up children. Now, I have six children and no theories."

Well, three children later myself, I sometimes feel like the Earl. Nevertheless, I'd like to share just a few suggestions about what we can do together to promote child care.

Senator DODD. Governor, before you get to those suggestions, one of the unique responsibilities that Governors fortunately don't have to bear with is voting. I am going to take two minutes, run over and cast a vote and come right back.

Governor KEAN. All right, Senator.

Senator DODD. The Committee will stand in recess. [Short recess.]

[Whereupon, Senator Kennedy assumed the Chair.] Senator KENNEDY. We will come back to order.

I think our good friends, the Governors, understand this process very well; we'll probably have a series of temporary interruptions as we continue the debate on the plant closing legislation on the floor.

I know we were in the midst of Governor Kean's testimony, and we'll return to that in just a moment.

I want to first of all commend our Chairman, Senator Dodd, for the leadership that he has provided in this extraordinarily important area of public policy. I know that he has been holding hearings on this issue of day care for a number of years, long before it came to the forefront as a public policy issue and question. I think he has been extremely active in speaking to members on both sides of the aisle, gaining their support, and has really put his finger, I think, on a linchpin issue that is of major concern to millions of people in our work force and, of course, of central concern to the health and safety of millions of our children across this country. We are all heartened by the action that has been taken in the welfare reform bill that recognized the importance and significance of day care and moving people from dependency into productivity, and we are extremely fortunate today to have Philip Johnston, who is the Secretary of Human Services in our Commonwealth of Massachusetts where we have had a very innovative program, the

ET Program, which recognizes the importance of day care as well as health care and bringing those two elements together with an effective program and what it has meant to many people who want to be part of the whole process of hope for themselves and for their children.

I am grateful to Philip Johnston for coming here and sharing with our Committee again the experience in Massachusetts.

I am particularly grateful to Myra Hogan, who is a mother from Greenfield, Massachusetts, who can tell us in very personal terms what this whole program has meant to her. I am always very impressed by the fact that people are willing to come here and in a public forum share some of the anxieties and frustrations that they have experienced in personal terms, and yet I know it is with a spirit that people listen and recognize how a hand reached out and provided at least an opportunity for those people to gain the training and the day care programs and also some relief from the anxiety of financial ruin in terms of health care, how they are willing to share that. So I am very grateful to her for her willingness to come here.

As Senator Dodd said, we have two Governors here who have given a great deal of thought to this issue, and I know they both got, I am sure, a very generous and warm introduction from our Chair here.

I will have my statement inserted in the record at an appropriate place not to interfere with the flow of the Governors' statements.

I am personally delighted to welcome back two good friends and people who have demonstrated by their public service, knowledge and commitment to the cause of day care.

A final point that I'd like to make is that this issue on the ABC is a priority issue for our Committee. We have now had agreement that we will deal with the minimum wage issues this Wednesday and the parental leave between the time of the 4th of July and the break for the Democratic Convention. We have a number of items on our Committee agenda, but as far as I'm concerned, this should be the next order of business for our Committee. And although we are running short in time, I think it is of such compelling and overwhelming interest, I would hope that both our Members get a chance to vote on it and the full membership does. I think it is an issue of that consequence and importance, and we are going to try and do everything we can to see that that opportunity is available. So, Governor Kean, if you can pick up where you left off, we'd appreciate it.

Governor KEAN. Thank you very much, Senator.

I would say again how honored I am to appear before you, of course, and before Senator Dodd.

In February, the National Governors' Association unanimously adopted a child care policy developed by a task force that I had the privilege to chair. That policy called for a strengthened Federal and State commitment to child care. It called for a more visible and vigorous private sector. And it said that expanding high-quality child care is vital, not only for our families, but also for our Nation.