The Child Care Stabilization Program was part of the American Rescue Act of 2021, providing $24 billion for childcare providers to pay their rent, pay their workers, and offer higher wages and bonuses in a tight labor market. About 200,000 childcare providers have depended on those funds.

But 70,000 childcare centers are likely to close with the expiration of this funding, according to a report by the Century Foundation. It won’t be sudden, but instead will be a “slow-rolling crisis” as programs balance budgets and realize where this funding gap leaves them, says Whitney Pesek, director of federal childcare policy for the National Women’s Law Center.

The economics of private-sector childcare have never fully made sense; care is unmanageably expensive for families, and yet childcare workers are paid low wages. “It hasn’t really rebounded in the way a lot of other low-wage sectors have,” explains Pesek. “It will only get worse with this funding going away.”

Childcare providers that run on “razor-thin margins” will likely raise rates for families. For the workforce that provides care—mostly women and especially women of color—higher wages and bonuses will likely disappear. Families in rural areas and families of color will be the most impacted by closures and rate increases.

The narrative that “the pandemic is over” is contributing to this funding being allowed to expire, says Pesek—even though the affordable childcare crisis existed before the pandemic and is far from fixed today.

While the ultimate solution is universal childcare—a long-term political battle—there are some other options in the near term. Democratic lawmakers have introduced legislation that would extend this funding, but it has yet to gain bipartisan support. Without such legislation on its own, activists and lobbyists are aiming to attach childcare funding to an omnibus bill—like 2024’s appropriations bill—before the end of the year.

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe

The Broadsheet is Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Subscribe here.

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PARTING WORDS

"It broke my heart to see, so I sent her a little video. There is no room for racism in any sport or at all."

—USA gymnast Simone Biles on a circulating video of a young Black girl being ignored during a gymnastics ceremony in Ireland earlier this year. Gymnastics Ireland said that the official had apologized and accepted responsibility for the act.