The cost of childcare in the United States has risen to unprecedented levels, threatening livelihoods for families that were deemed stable while worsening the situation for low-income households. Comparative statistics indicate that families in Los Angeles spend an average of $2,058 on housing and $2,450 on childcare (Los Angeles Times, 2022). This figure shows that childcare costs have since eclipsed housing and other costs for families, thereby becoming the bigger headache for most of them. High childcare costs have become a trend across several regions in the United States. As the Los Angeles Times (2022) reports, these costs have recorded an 81% increase in San Francisco from 2014 to the current level. This reality makes childcare costs the most major economic challenge for most families, especially those in the low-income bracket. Based on these reports, it is clear childcare costs are a big problem. As seen in the sections below, efforts to reverse these trends and help families shoulder the burden of high childcare costs have been inadequate because of the limited reach, thus the need to use allowances and pre-kindergarten funding as alternative solutions.
Efforts to deal with the rising childcare costs have been evidenced at the two levels of the federal and local governments. At the federal government level, initiatives by Congress have been implemented at different times but with no meaningful results. The most prominent of these was the 1990s Child Care and Development Block Grant, a funding initiative aimed at partially funding childcare programs (Kashen, 2022). Although indicating an effort to address the issue, the implementation of the legislation, as Kashen (2022) holds, faced insurmountable challenges. At some point, the failure to pass supporting legislation became a disadvantage. Besides legislation, the federal government has also used tax credits at various stages to try and deal with the increasing childcare costs (Kashen, 2022). The current administration, for example, announced a $4,000 grant in annual childcare credits for any family with an income below $125,000 in annual income. This is a wide-reaching policy by the government which, as Miller (2022) holds, is still not operational. At its core, the initiative promises to take on everyone who needs help, especially during difficult economic times when almost all families require support.
Another approach that has been used is scholarship grants for childcare. These are grants aimed at shouldering childcare costs on behalf of low-income families. The case of South Carolina’s Child Care Scholarship fits this type of program by the government. As with other existing programs, the restrictions that apply to the program often tend to exclude the majority in need of the relief it provides. For the case of South Carolina, the qualifications for the program include; work, school, or other engagements taking up at least 15 hours of the parent’s time every week and having an annual income at or below 300% of the baseline poverty level in the state ($112,500). The scholarship is given through direct payments to participating care providers for full costs for the family’s child under their care (SC Child Care, 2023). This is intended to relieve economic strain on families with children that need care services.
The framing of the programs is a problem. Most of them only cover a portion of the childcare costs, with only a few cases covering the full costs (Los Angeles Times, 2022). This means that families living under strenuous conditions would still be required to pay the remaining costs, which is not easy for families with many competing needs. Still, the stringent requirements for families to qualify have left the majority out of the programs. As the Los Angeles Times (2022) informs, on average, only 14% of families needing these benefits end up getting them. This leaves 86% of struggling households dealing with skyrocketing costs, which they cannot afford in the real sense.
The high childcare costs threaten the productivity of the nation, states, and businesses. To begin with, by putting a huge burden on family incomes, they put pressure on workers’ salaries in public and private institutions, thereby increasing what could be deemed a living wage. Demands for pay rise across business and public institutions are likely to increase as high childcare costs continue to burden families. At the heart of it is the threat to those whose salaries and incomes cannot match childcare costs demands and who have to abandon work, training, or schooling to care for the young ones. According to Ramaswamy (2021), this category is the silent majority today. They find no appealing solution and no program to help them tackle the challenge of high childcare costs. As such, they have to forego everything to raise their pre-kindergarten children. With the rising inflation rates in the country, no family is spared. As Ramaswamy (2021) informs, the inflation rate in the United States hovers around 6.2%, which puts every household under increasing pressure to deal with rising childcare costs amidst other increasing expenditures in housing, healthcare, and food.
The solutions have to come from the government in order to solve the problem across the board without leaving any family behind. The most important solution should have a comprehensive education and care program that fully supports the care of children from pre-Kindergarten all the way to Kindergarten and K levels. Normally, pre-Kindergarten is not supported across most States as it is taken as the pre-learning years. Supporting pre-Kindergarten learning would involve funding all childcare institutions with no preconditions, just as the normal education system is supported. Governments at the local level are important in this assignment in that they can align policy with management of childcare centers by designing a funding budget and programs that take away childcare costs from parents so that they can concentrate on other issues fully. The pre-kindergarten program described by Ramaswamy (2021) fits this description well. According to Ramaswamy (2021), such programs will have the government directly fund significant institutional requirements to allow institutions to cover the few remaining costs at low or no budget for parents. They could work under a subsidy framework depending on the number of pre-kindergarten students such institutions have, irrespective of the family’s socio-economic status.
Another effective solution is policy-oriented and thus the work of Congress or local-level legislatures. This involves designing policies that provide leave allowances and payments for families with children of pre-kindergarten age. Given that the costs are bound to remain high, increasing salaries for the relevant categories when they have children under childcare institutions will go a long way in ensuring that parents can shoulder childcare costs. This can be modeled based on other allowances such that the costs quoted by the care institutions are forwarded to the employing entity. Such a policy can go a long way in replacing tax credits. The use of policy would ensure compliance not just for government-employed parents but also for private and business entities, where it will be mandatory to pay the benefits.
In conclusion, the high childcare costs have put a huge burden on families struggling with other living costs like food and housing amidst high inflation in the economy. In these conditions, it is imperative to help such families deal with the challenge of high childcare costs. Governments at both levels have initiated efforts, albeit with limited achievement. These include childcare tax reliefs and grant programs targeting low-income families. On the other hand, the stringent requirements have seen only 14% of vulnerable families benefiting, thereby perpetuating rather than solving the problem. It is, therefore, imperative that the solutions suggested in this paper are adopted. First, at the federal level, using a pre-kindergarten program framed similarly to the K-12 education system is identified as a strategy that can eliminate the high costs, allowing parents to concentrate on nation-building. At the policy level, there is a need to include allowances or payments for families with children in childcare centers, where such allowances go directly into the institutions. This, too, can be done as a policy by Congress. The overall meaning is that local and federal governments have the most significant role to play in tackling the challenge of high childcare costs. They should think beyond helping only a few and consider helping everyone to reach a lasting solution. Workers’ organizations can coalesce around these two proposed solutions and advocate for them at the legislative level and in the executive governments at both levels.
References
Kashen, J. (2022, December 13). How Congress got close to solving child care, then failed. The Century Foundation. Retrieved January 22, 2023, from https://tcf.org/content/commentary/how-congress-got-close-to-solving-child-care-then-failed/
Los Angeles Times Communications LLC (2022). Editorial: Childcare costs more than rent for many California families. That has to change. Los Angeles Times. https://www.proquest.com/blogs-podcasts-websites/editorial-childcare-costs-more-than-rent-many/docview/2619854585/se-2?accountid=44759
Miller, C. C. (2022, April 8). Republicans and Democrats agree child care needs help. Here’s how they differ. The New York Times. Retrieved January 22, 2023, from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/08/upshot/child-care-republicans-democrats.html
Ramaswamy, V.S. (2021, November 18). Inflation’s wrath hits home: Families struggle with surging childcare costs. The Salinas Californian. Retrieved January 22, 2023, from https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/inflations-wrath-hits-home/docview/2599294804/se-2?accountid=44759.
SC Child Care. Child care scholarship program. What is the Child Care Scholarship Program ? SC Child Care Services. (n.d.). Retrieved January 22, 2023, from https://www.scchildcare.org/programs/child-care-scholarship-program/
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