The first few months of each year are always full of intentions to do better—to be more productive, try something new or even just take more time for yourself. But for so many parents that just isn’t possible anymore. In fact, many parents can’t even get back to their normal routines this new year. A record high of 104,000 parents and guardians—more than during the early phases of the pandemic—missed work last October because of child care issues. And that burden disproportionately falls on women.
These are not the makings of a sustainable and caring economy. President Joe Biden made twenty-first century solutions for working families a top priority in his 2023 State of the Union address and he should do the same for the federal budget proposal.
We know these struggles firsthand. Dorian has a young toddler and Lorella a weeks-old infant. Like many working parents, we are constantly juggling the responsibilities of parenting and a more-than-full-time job. We’re both fortunate to have good jobs with benefits and a strong support network. But too many working parents don’t have the resources and support they need. A January report by Council for a Strong America found that 85 percent of primary caregivers said that issues with a lack of child care hurt their efforts or time commitments at work.
It’s not just a problem of kids getting sick with RSV, the flu, COVID-19, you name it: The child care sector was in crisis long before the pandemic and has still not fully recovered. Many workers don’t get paid enough to stay in their essential jobs, so open slots are few and far between. Additionally, with child care costs outpacing inflation, parents often can’t afford those slots anyway.
Just one month of child care, on average, costs about $1,000—as much as a Macbook Pro. Could you afford to buy a new laptop every single month?
Worse still, in the six months since the expanded Child Tax Credit in Biden’s American Rescue Plan expired, hunger spiked by 25 percent for families with children. This is unacceptable in a country as rich as ours.
The good news is that there’s a solution: The American Rescue Plan’s child tax credit cut child poverty by half and led to 716,000 fewer Black children and 1.2 million fewer Latinx children in poverty, the lowest child poverty on record for children of color. It also improved the mental health of adults in the lowest-income families. Millions of families used the expanded credit to buy school supplies, pay down their debts, fix their cars to get to work and pay for child care.
But obstruction from greedy corporations and their allies in Congress helped block another expansion of the child tax credit and funding for child care was not nearly enough to sustain the industry long term. Meanwhile, big business jacked up prices for everything from gas to baby formula. Already-wealthy CEOs made out with bonuses while millions struggled. Biden called out these billionaires and advocated for them to pay their fair share.
It is already clear from the last couple weeks that the new House majority is more interested in scoring partisan points than delivering for working families.
We cannot allow our country to go backwards by pushing parents out of the workforce, letting children and child care workers go hungry and forcing families to make unimaginable choices. That’s not the story we want to tell our kids at night.
Many states are spearheading their own efforts to solve both the child care funding problem and expand statewide child tax credits—from New York to Montana to Minnesota—but they cannot do it alone. Every family, no matter their state or their zip code, should have the same opportunity and economic foundation to thrive.
High-quality, sustainable child care systems demand long term federal investment. A recently released resource from Community Change and Children’s Funding Project demonstrates how we can properly fund the child care sector in a way that meets the desperate needs of families across the country and fairly compensates providers for their essential work.
It is already clear from the last couple weeks that the new House majority is more interested in scoring partisan points than delivering for working families. Our kids and families are depending on the president to step in and stand with them. Biden should make clear in his budget proposal—as he did with his State of the Union address—that we will put families first.
This column was produced by Progressive Perspectives, which is run by The Progressive magazine and distributed by Tribune News Service.