Officials in Alabama seek to incentivize child care workers as part of a recruiting and retention plan. That’s because, like many other industries in the aftermath of the Covid epidemic, the child care business is experiencing a personnel crisis. Not just in Alabama, but across the country. These bonuses arrive at a time when the prospect of more broad-based stimulus payouts has faded.
In Alabama, more than 10,000 child care employees are receiving the aforementioned incentive checks. They total $12.6 million and come on the heels of the Alabama Department of Human Resources’ first round of Child Care Workforce Stabilization awards.
Stimulus Check For Full-Time Workers And Part-Time Workers Too
The second round will take place from February 28 to March 18.
Bonuses of $1,500 for full-time employees and $750 for part-time employees are included in the awards. The Alabama Department of Human Resources granted them to 1,278 child care providers that applied between December 2021 and January 2022. In all, 65 percent of the state’s qualified child care providers applied for and received funding. Bonuses have been authorized for 10,065 workers.
The reason for the lack of more national stimulus checks, as everyone knows by now, is that the political will for them in Congress has vanished.
The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives approved an extension of last year’s monthly child tax credit stimulus checks. The idea, however, came into opposition in the Senate, where at least one dissenting Democrat (West Virginia’s Joe Manchin) objected to the price tag. That was all it needed to put an end to the extension. This year’s federal tax return will include the second half of the enhanced child tax credit benefit. Instead of receiving monthly checks, you will receive that amount of money this year by claiming it as a credit on your tax return. Some governments and towns are also issuing their stimulus checks.
