The pandemic upended the United States’ child care system. Like schools and so much else, most daycare centers initially closed their doors when the nation went into lockdown. That left parents who still had to report to work scrambling to find someone to look after their kids. Parents who were able to work from home had to come up with a way to do their job while tending to their children. Some miraculously juggled work and parenting duties. Others ended up working late into the evening after spending the day caring for their kids. More than a few quit their jobs to become full-time parents.
Meanwhile, despite governmental support, about 360,000 daycare workers suddenly found themselves unemployed. Some child care centers that shut down in March 2020 closed for good, while those that have reopened are struggling to fill vacant positions, as former employees and otherwise qualified workers have gravitated to higher paying jobs with better benefits. With staffing shortages, centers can’t take on as many kids as they used to, meaning many children remain at home with parents—often mothers—who continue to delay their reentry into the workforce. That in turn further delays the nation’s economic recovery.
Thanks to COVID, the United States’ child care system is in shambles, but it wasn’t in good shape prior to the pandemic either. High costs, low wages, and provider shortages have crippled a service industry parents of all economic backgrounds rely upon. The worsening crisis has hit working-class and low-income families particularly hard, as they are often confronted with hard choices and few good options involving parental duties and work. The stress these decisions exert on a family’s finances is often borne by children. Furthermore, the wider economy suffers when affordable child care isn’t available for working Americans.
Fortunately, the reconciliation bill Democrats are working on in Congress addresses many of the problems plaguing the American child care system today. The Democrats’ plan would make child care more affordable for working- and middle-class families by capping its cost for families earning up to 1.5 times their state’s median income at 7% of their family income. Lower-income families would pay less or nothing. The federal government would also work with states to fund universal preschool and pre-kindergarten programs. Finally, child care workers would see their wages bumped to a minimum of $15.00 per hour.
Working- and middle-class families would benefit enormously from more affordable child care. Child care, after all, is expensive. The average family with a kid enrolled in child care spends about 10% of their income on child care (some estimates are higher) and that percentage generally increases for families with lower incomes. Economists estimate that spending closer to 7% on child care is more reasonable for most families.
The financial advantages derived from more affordable child care don’t come solely from savings on cost, however. Parents who drop their kids off at child care can spend that time earning an income, which can boost a family’s bank account. Today, many families conclude it makes more sense financially for one parent to stay home with a pre-elementary age child while another parent or caregiver goes to work than it is for both parents to work and see one of their paychecks eaten up by child care costs. Family incomes can rise if two parents can work while saving on child care. It’s also important to recognize that the parent who most often stays home to care for young children is the mother, which can delay job advancement for her and set back her potential lifetime earnings.
Affordable child care is also sometimes hard for families to find, especially low-income and working-class families. Daycare centers require significant investments in staff, which raises the basic enrollment cost. High-income families can afford that, but low-income families often struggle to find reasonably priced care; when they do, they’re often put on a waiting list at a time when they really need someone to watch their kid. Rather than look to daycare centers, these parents may turn instead to home daycare providers or family members for support. These individuals more often than not provide quality care, but relying on friends and family can possibly limit parents’ employment opportunities and earning potential since they will need to live in relatively close proximity to their child care providers. If affordable child care was more plentiful, families would feel more at ease moving to a new community in pursuit of better jobs and higher pay.
Children benefit from more affordable child care as well. I won’t hang my hat here on the argument that kids who go to daycare do better academically than kids who spend their days at home with their parents (although the benefits of pre-K are pretty well established, and there is evidence children enrolled in child care do slightly better than their peers in school.) The main benefit children get from more affordable child care is actually the logical extension of an earlier argument I made: If child care is less expensive than it currently is, families can pocket the savings, and if parents can afford to send their kids to daycare rather than spend the day caring for them themselves, that frees parents up to work and increase their family’s income. Consequently, America’s children would grow up in households with more disposable income and many would escape poverty, a burden that otherwise can have lifelong ramifications when it comes to things like physical and mental health, education, and their own economic prospects. In this respect, national investments in child care are foundational investments in the well-being of our nation’s children and the nation’s future.
Finally, the Democrats’ child care plan would make a difference in the lives of child care providers and employees. As mentioned earlier, running a daycare center is expensive, but centers that serve working-class and low-income families turn meager profits. They are not money-making endeavors, and those who enter the field do so not looking to get rich but rather as a calling and to provide a service needed in their local community. According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook, the average full-time child care worker in the United States in 2020 earned $12.24 per hour and an annual salary of $25,460. With those low wages, it is not unsurprising to learn the child care industry has one of the nation’s lowest median salaries as well as one of the nation’s highest turnover rates, which means providers spend an inordinate amount of time interviewing and training new employees. The Democrats’ plan—which would raise the hourly wage for child care employees to $15.00 an hour—is a first step to providing these working-class Americans with a living wage that keeps them out of poverty while recognizing the valuable work they do for our society.
In the United States, sending a son or daughter to child care is often framed as a choice; unlike school, which parents automatically send their kids off to when they come of age, parents are said to decide whether they want to stay home with their little ones or find child care so they can continue working. Many couples cherish the prospect of a parent (and if we’re being honest here, it’s usually the mother) staying home with their pre-school age children. These families wouldn’t have it any other way, viewing it as their responsibility as parents to be there for their children at all times at this tender age. The arrangement also hearkens back to the storied post-WWII era, when fathers were the breadwinners, mothers were the homemakers, and the American middle class prospered. It’s a fine way to raise a family.
Realistically, however, some families and a lot of mothers simply don’t have that choice. They need to work to provide for their children and regard working as the best way to secure a decent life for their kids. It can be a challenge these days for families to get by not only on the income of one parent but even two parents. Even if they would like to stay home with their children, both parents may need to work to make a living. Having affordable child care makes it easier for such parents to better support their families.
As much as many of us may revere it, a single breadwinner household simply isn’t a realistic option for many families. Affordable and accessible child care, however, can give families more flexibility when it comes to work. For example, since many daycare centers offer summer programs for school age children, parents could feel more comfortable taking jobs that require them to work year-round if necessary. Additionally, daycare would allow working parents to better synchronize work shifts so that they no longer have to work separate shifts to ensure one parent is always home with the kids; instead, both parents could work day shifts and spend evenings at home with their children as a family. As a result, child care can help strengthen families making their way in today’s economy.
Finally, many mothers want to continue their careers after having children. This is an acceptable choice as well. Fathers have been doing it for decades while it has become more common for both professional and working-class mothers to do so over the past half-century. In this way, affordable child care can help reduce gender inequality in society and empower women.
It’s high time for the United States to invest more in early child care programs. Compared to the other democracies with developed economies in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United States ranks near the bottom when it comes to public spending on families and children.
The number of children aged 0-5 enrolled in child care programs in the United States is also below average.
Those numbers may be partially attributable to parental choice, but given that other OECD countries invest more heavily in publicly-funded child care, a fair portion of that low enrollment is certainly attributable to the lack of affordable child care in the U.S.
Coupled with their proposed paid maternity/family/sick leave plan, the Democrats’ child care plan could go a long way toward reducing inequality in the United States, alleviating both poverty and the financial stress many middle- and working-class families deal with on a year-to-year basis, and catching the country up to the standards of social investments other similarly situated countries have already adopted. It’s good economic policy and good family policy. For decades, Americans have been told that, if left alone, the free market can do a better job fixing social problems than the government. The child care market, though, is failing while the monetary resources that could mend the situation keep flowing upwards to the wealthiest of Americans. It’s time for the United States to reverse that trend and invest directly in the American people. It can do that with a direct investment in child care.
Further reading: “The Precarious State of American Child Care” by Anna North (Vox, March 25, 2021); “Child Care in Crisis: Can Biden’s Plan Save It?” by Alisha Haridasani Gupta (New York Times, March 31, 2021); “One Weird Trick to Fix Our Broken Child Care System” by Anne Helen Petersen (Vox, April 2, 2021); “Biden’s Plan to Make America Less Terrible for Parents” by Anna North (Vox, May 5, 2021); “American Motherhood vs. the American Work Ethic” by Rani Molla (Recode, August 12, 2021); “‘The Pay is Absolute Crap’: Child-care Workers are Quitting Rapidly, a Red Flag for the Economy” by Heather Long (Washington Post, September 19, 2021)
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Revisiting the Debt Ceiling Debate
This past July I posted an article on the debt ceiling. I’m leaving a link here if you missed it and are interested in revisiting the now very timely topic. One thing I’ve been thinking about: Why do they call it the “debt ceiling”? I propose renaming it the “default tripwire.” No one would mess with it if we called it that.
Thanks for reading.
Exit music: “The Love I Lost” by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes (1973, Black & Blue)