In a
classic Catch-22, New York State ranks #12 with an overall score of 66.83
in the 2020 Best and Worst
States for Working Moms
survey. (Note: In 2018 we ranked 10th, so New York moms have lost ground!)
Rural
areas, which are a very large percentage by geography of New York State ,
are often child care desserts, without even one registered or licensed day care
in some townships or school districts. As for affordability, too often in New York it is cheaper
to send your child to college than to a high quality day care (if you can find
one).
At an
annual cost of $15,394, quality child care is unaffordable for 90% of New York families. New York State
ranks 6th out of all 50 states for the most expensive infant care. In fact, a
minimum wage worker has to work for 35 weeks just to pay for one infant's child
care. Yet subsidized child care is underfunded
and increasingly unavailable.
Many rural
areas of the country and here in New
York have experienced stalled economic growth, have
higher rates of child poverty, and see young children entering kindergarten
already behind their metropolitan-area peers in early reading and math skills.
The Center for American Progress has identified these critical facts about
rural child care:
1. On average, families in rural areas
spend 12 percent of their income on child care.
2. Rural families use regular child
care at rates similar to metropolitan families but are more likely to use
home-based child care.
3. 60 percent of rural Americans live
in a child care desert.
4. Family child care providers play an
outsize role in rural child care supply.
5. A typical teacher in a rural child
care center earns just $23,000 per year.
The American
electorate strongly supports policies that would improve access to affordable,
high-quality child care and want their leaders at both the federal and state
level to understand that need and to act. Something those leaders have been
slow to do.
On the one
hand parents need to work, but when child care is not available, is too
expensive, or does not meet their needs (split shifts; after-hours needs,
etc.), it can drive them further into poverty. And poverty is something rural
new Yorkers are far too familiar with.
Living
wages jobs are out of reach for many New Yorkers. Ninety percent of the jobs in
New York pay
less than $32,000 a year, according to Melinda Mack, the executive director of
the Albany-based New York Association of Training and Employment Professionals.
For the 44% of American workers in low-paying part-time and temporary work with
no benefits or security, they bring home less than $18,000 a year.
According
to a recent report by the Manhattan Institute, the typical US male worker
needs more than one year's salary to afford the typical costs of a family of
four. In 1985, it took him 30 weeks' pay to afford $13,227 in expenditures,
versus 53 weeks' pay to afford $54,441 in 2018.
The report
findings for a female breadwinner are even more discouraging: In 1985, she
needed to work 45 weeks to afford the four annual expenses, compared with 66
weeks in 2018. Note that in this report, a family of four's major living costs
are: housing, healthcare, transportation, and education. Not included is
another critical cost: childcare.
How serious
is the child care crises in America ?
Many folks are having fewer kids because of costs, according to a 2018 CNBC.com story. "Child care is too
expensive" was the top reason (64 percent), with "worried about the
economy" at No. 3 (49 percent) and "can't afford more children"
(44 percent) coming in fourth, showing that economic insecurities and financial
concerns are causing many young Americans to skip or delay having kids.
If, as the
Center for American Progress has surveyed, voters want child care as a front
and center issue up for discussion - and action - by political leaders this
year, it is incumbent on all of us to make sure we put child care on the radar
screens of candidates running for state and federal officials this November. And
to vote for candidates who have demonstrated their commitment to the economic well-being
of American families.
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