The Child Care Crises
The Unites
States tops the list as the most expensive place to raise children. Families
will pay an average of $233,610 from birth through age 17 — or about $13,000 a
year — according to government figures released in January. Families in urban
areas in the Northeast, such as New York and Boston, were likely to
pay even more — an average of $253,770, or roughly $14,000 a year —
because of higher housing and child-care costs, according to a report by the
Department of Agriculture. In fact, average child-care costs exceed the costs
of in-state college tuition across the nation.
But rural
families are also under the child care gun, and often with fewer choices, lower
quality available care, and less in their paychecks to start with.
Here’s a
case in point drawn from CAP’s Mapping
America’s Child Care Deserts:
In Livingston
County, New York,
licensed child care is even sparser. The area is largely rural, with small
towns and cities scattered among rolling hills and farmland. Many families only
have one or two licensed child care providers from which to choose—if they are
fortunate. In the Livingston
County seat of Geneseo, a
city of roughly 10,000 residents, there are only three licensed child care
providers, with a combined capacity to care for fewer than 75 children. In
areas such as these, parents are forced to make difficult decisions that might
include finding unlicensed child care, leaving the workforce, or patching
together a network of family and friends. For many families, these options are
not ideal for children or for parents.
The cost of
child care is a significant burden for parents who need it to support their
families. The Center for American Progress looked at the data from the National
Survey of Children’s Health found that just in 2016, nearly 2 million parents
of children age 5 and younger had to quit a job, not take a job, or greatly
change their job because of problems with child care.
According
to a 2016 “Care Index” report by New America, a Washington, D.C.
think tank, $9,589 per child, represents nearly a fifth of annual median
household income and 85 percent of the yearly median cost of rent. And no
state in the country had a system of care that scored well in each of three key
areas of affordability, accessibility and quality, the report went on to say.
One of the
hardest hit segments of society for child care are the more than 4.8 million
undergraduate parents on campuses nationwide, who make up one quarter of all
students and are a significant portion of those parents trying to better their
economic situation by going back to school.
And the
fact is, as data from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for
Education Statistics shows, the vast majority of undergraduates are now
classified as nontraditional, whether because they have dependents, are a
single caregiver, delayed post-secondary enrollment, do not have a traditional
high school diploma, are employed full-time, attend school part-time, or are
independent of their parents for financial aid reasons. In all, 74% of all
undergrads in 2011-12 had at least one nontraditional characteristic and about
one-third had two or three.
As AAUW
research from 2013 shows, child care on campus is a critical need for moms in
school. The report Women in
Community Colleges: Access to Success showed there are more than 4 million
women attending two-year public institutions or community colleges, and more
than 1 million of them are mothers. Compared with students without dependent
children, student parents are more likely to drop out of school, and they most
often cite caregiving responsibilities and limited financial resources as their
reasons for leaving. According to the National
Center for Education Statistics, less
than half of the more than 1,000 community colleges in the United States
offer on-campus child care for students.
Additionally, student parents rack up more student debt than
most (25% more for a bachelor's degree, on average), and drop out at higher
rates than their child-free peers (only 27% of single student parents finish a
bachelor's degree within 6 years, versus about 56% of their child-free peers).
For this group in particular, the cycle of enrolling and dropping out can
compound an already vicious cycle of poverty, both for moms and eventually for
their kids, too (research shows kids of parents without a degree don’t fare as
well as the those of college grads).
And it is
not just child care where America
lags behind. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, United States
lags behind other industrialized nations when it comes to enrolling children in
preschool. While the average enrollment for other “first world” countries is
73%, in the US,
just 43 percent of 3-year-olds were enrolled in preschool.
Both before school day and after school day care is needed to help working families
meet the challenges of both educating their school-age children and feeding and
housing them. States and the federal government must step up to help fund these
gaps in coverage. Tax credits are a useless tool for the vast majority of
parents who don’t make enough to earn them.
In the
modern world, America
has to have a frank and open discussion about the cost, quality,
accessibility, and supply of child care – and about the need for universal Pre-K. Policy makers can’t just leave child care and early education on the
table when it comes to building a 21st century workforce and
workplace.
This isn’t
rocket science. Other nations have figured out the link between high quality,
affordable and accessible child care and a strong economic prosperity for all.
According to A Blueprint for Child Care Reform:
The United
States can do better for the millions of
families struggling with the high cost of child care. Prioritizing child care
puts families first and helps children succeed in school and life. It’s an
investment in our education system and our future workforce and is one the
country cannot afford to ignore. This report outlines a progressive vision for
child care reform that guarantees financial assistance on a sliding-scale basis
for middle- and low-income families with children ages 12 or younger and
children with disabilities up to age 18.
Here’s a
link to a North Country Matters show I did with Blue Carreker, the Upstate
Organizer for the Citizen Action of New York
& Public Policy and Education Fund of New York, about the crises in child
care in New York State. Lack of quality, affordable
childcare is a drag on our economy. We discussed the gap between the needs and
the available services and what can be done to bridge those gaps. (April 21,
2017)
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