The United States Has A Critical Child Care Problem

 

The charts above are from The Center for American Progress. It shows the cost of child care in each state for various ages of children in licensed child care centers, and for a family home-based child care that meets licensing requirements. 

Republicans would have you believe that many Americans are refusing to go back to work because they are lazy, or want to milk the unemployment system. I think that's ridiculous. Workers want to work, because it gives them self-satisfaction and dignity. But they must be able to afford to take a job. And the cost of child care is one thing that prevents that.

The sad fact is that a single person with a child making minimum wage just cannot afford to do that. The national minimum wage is only $7.25 an hour. That's about $15,080 a year. Note that the average cost of child care for an infant in the U.S. is $15,900, for a toddler is $13.200, and for a pre-schooler is $10,700. Once the child care is paid (for only one child), there is not enough left of a minimum wage paycheck to support the family! And this is the cost for basic child care. High quality child care costs significantly more -- $28,800 for an infant, $22,400 for a toddler, and $17,200 for a pre-schooler.

Raising the minimum wage would help. A $15.00 an hour minimum wage would translate to about $31,200 a year. That would allow a family to struggle by while paying for basic child care, but still falls far short of allowing them to take advantage of high-quality child care. Doesn't every child deserve high-quality child care? Other developed countries provide high-quality child care for their citizens, and the United States (the richest nation of Earth) could do that, if our politicians cared as much about working families as they do rich families.

Looking at those figures, it should be obvious to everyone that something must be done to help workers afford childcare. President Biden's American Families Plan would do that. Under his plan, no working class or middle class family would have to pay more than 7% of their income for high-quality child care. That would be about $1,056 a year for someone making $7.25 and hour, or $2,184 a year for someone making $15.00 an hour. That would allow them to actually support a family -- especially on the $15.00 an hour wage.

Passing the American Families Plan would enrich the lives of millions of Americans by allowing them to work their way out of poverty, or maintain their middle class lifestyle. It would be a sound investment in the people of this country, and one that would pay dividends for the country in the future.

Unfortunately, the Republicans oppose the plan. The only entities they care about helping are corporations and rich families. The Democrats are going to try to pas the American Families Plan by using the reconciliation process (to avoid a GOP filibuster in the Senate). I hope they can succeed, but it will be close -- and it will require the Senate votes of all 48 Democrats and both Independents. There is not margin for error.

The children of this country deserve high-quality child care. And our federal government should help American working families be able to afford that high-quality child care.