So, What About Child Care?
In the recent rush to reopen the economy, policymakers virtually forget about child care and the parents - especially the mothers - who need it
Publisher’s Riff
Whenever there is a national discussion about the state of the economy or what’s happening to the labor market, childcare gets conveniently left out of the discussion. We are now seeing unemployment numbers that are unlike anything America has seen since 1948 - indeed, the constant hemorrhaging of jobs is raising concerns unemployment will reach the 25 percent mark set in 1933 during the Great Depression. The unemployment rate officially stands at 14.7 percent; but, according to Market Watch, unofficial “U6” numbers - which the Bureau of Labor Statistics avoids reporting - put that rate at at least 20 percent with about “… [a]bout of 25% of the workforce … unemployed or underemployed.”
So, where does this leave children? More specifically, as states reopen and the normalization of reopening triggers a public sense of peer pressure to push people back to work, how does that work in terms of child care? In moments like these, adults generally forget that they were kids once; too many policymakers either forget that or they don’t care about other people’s kids. That level of neglect creates a vicious snowballing whereby the plight of parents, particularly mothers, is dropped from the conversation. Today, everyone is celebrating Mother’s Day, but in that celebration, we’re not thinking about the real pressures mothers of infant/toddler/elementary and middle-school-age children are facing or truly crafting a national plan for their needs during this pandemic. Schools are, for the most part, shuttered out an abundance of caution. Yet, those closures aren’t fully aligned with the circumstances of parents being forced back to work and, thus, forced to make a difficult choice between drawing an income and leaving small children at home … without adequate child care or friends, neighbors or families to watch them.
We’ve unpacked the schools situation. But, then, what about daycare centers for children not yet in Pre-K or Kindergarten? What’s been happening there and what will happen? According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, 60 percent of licensed child care providers have closed - and nearly half are expecting to remain close without “adequate funding” and support. Should that happen, we could be seeing a child care crisis where close to 5 million slots are permanently lost, according to a recent analysis from the Center for American Progress …
There was already a child care crisis prior to the pandemic, as CAP reports in earlier studies …
Whether due to high cost, limited availability, or inconvenient program hours, child care challenges are driving parents out of the workforce at an alarming rate. In fact, in 2016 alone, an estimated 2 million parents made career sacrifices due to problems with child care. Child care challenges have become a barrier to work, especially for mothers, who disproportionately take on unpaid care giving responsibilities when their family cannot find or afford child care.
On average, before pandemic, nearly 9 percent of working adults experienced some level of job disruption due to a child care challenge. With COVID-19 presenting everyone with extremely difficult choices and circumstances, what will that rate look like heading into a recession fast sliding into a depression?
Are reopening plans - already lacking in specificity and detail - really taking any of that into consideration? There’s been no universal approach or federal guidance, so, probably not. Daycare centers are on their own, and employers are not figuring that their bottom lines are aligned with the childcare circumstances and health of their employees. It all depends largely on the state you’re in and it depends on how much support or aid child care centers are receiving.
Childcare received only $3.5 billion in direct aid through a Child Care and Development Block Grant in the first federal disaster relief package, but that’s not near enough according to some Congressional leaders, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) who both proposed a $50 billion package. Lawmakers in Washington, however, are not even talking to each other on the overall state of the economy - and haven’t even negotiated anything in response to the most recent and horrific unemployment numbers. Sadly, as much of a priority as child care should be, and as much as parents will need it, society refuses to make the necessary investment.