President Joe Biden on Tuesday made the just under two-mile trip from the White House to join care workers and union members at Washington’s Union Station, where he touted his investments in child care, home care, paid family and medical leave and more. 

“We’ve made progress but there is so much more that we have to do, so much more,” Biden said to cheers from those in the crowd, many of whom were sporting purple Service Employees International Union shirts. “If we want the best economy in the world, we have to have the best caregiving economy in the world – we really do.”

The president on Tuesday made the case that his legislative priorities – particularly the American Rescue Plan he signed in 2021, which the White House noted provided $39 billion in child care relief – is helping make care more affordable for Americans. 

“Not a single Republican voted for it, I might add. Not one,” Biden said on Tuesday. “It made our nation’s biggest investment in childcare ever.” 

Biden, according to the White House, has secured a nearly 50% increase in federal child care assistance since he took office. Last year, he signed an executive order that contains more than 50 directives to increase access to child care and improve the work life of caregivers.

“But the cost of care is too high and pay for care workers is much too low,” Biden said. 

The cost of child care has risen 26% in the last 10 years, according to the White House. A survey by Care.com in 2022 found about 63% of parents said the cost of child care had become more expensive over the last year. 

During his remarks on Tuesday, Biden also noted that the average family spends $11,000 on childcare per kid each year. He said the cost of long-term care for older Americans and those with disabilities rose 40% in the last decade.

“In the United States of America, no one – no one should choose between caring for a parent who’s raised them, a child who depends on them, [and] a paycheck that they need,” said Biden, who opened his remarks speaking about his own concerns about with childcare for his two sons after his first wife and daughter were killed in a car accident.

The president’s budget for the next fiscal year calls a restoration of the expanded Child Tax Credit and a national paid family and medical leave program, among other things. The White House noted Biden also wants to expand Medicaid home and community-based services in order to enable more seniors and people with disabilities to get care in their own home or community. 

Biden’s budget would also establish a new program that would offer working families earning less than $200,000 annually with high-quality child care from birth until kindergarten for no more than $10 a day

The new initiatives in Biden’s 2025 fiscal year budget — on health care, child care, homeownership and more — would be paid for by tax hikes on large corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

Biden on Tuesday said that in the “coming weeks” his administration plans to “release new rules to strengthen staffing standards in nursing homes, to get homecare workers a bigger share of Medicaid payments.”

The president also criticized Republicans on Tuesday, saying a budget proposed by a large group in the House GOP, the Republican Study Committee, would cut existing caregiving programs by a third. 

Spectrum News’ Ryan Chatelain contributed to this report.