As the COVID-19 pandemic continues and some schools remain closed, parents are faced with the economic hardship of paying for increasingly costly child care, according to an article from the Wall Street Journal.
Rising numbers of parents are in the market for child care or paying for online classes they wouldn’t need if schools reopen. Some are hiring tutors or placing their children in more expensive private schools that plan to open for in-person learning. Day care centers are charging more for services as they struggle to pay for protective gear and additional cleaning.
To families, child care costs range from financially burdensome to outright crippling. The more money parents have to spend on child care translates to less money they have to spend, invest and save. Many working parents say child-care costs keep them from saving for a home.
When schools closed in the spring as a result of the pandemic, some parents put together makeshift child care, working from home while watching their children. This is not an option for parents who work essential jobs and cannot work from home. Some parents had to leave the workforce to be able to watch their children.
For many, the costs of child care can be a burden even under normal circumstances. Day care for a single child can easily cost $10,000 a year and even more in some big cities. According to the federal Consumer Price Index, the cost of child care and nursery school has risen at roughly twice the rate of inflation since 2000.
In a June survey from the National Association for the Education of Young Children, approximately 40% of child-care providers said they expected to close permanently if they don’t receive additional public assistance. Those that stay open could be forced to raise prices to afford protective equipment and new coronavirus protocols.
Some economists say that many companies and policy makers haven’t fully comprehended the child care crisis. Remote work has worked out for some American companies, but remote learning hasn’t been as successful.
Help may be on the way.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden recently proposed providing free pre-Kindergarten for 3- and 4-year-olds, and tax credits for child care.
Senate Republicans have proposed allocating $15 billion of the next coronavirus relief package to stabilizing the child care industry. House Democrats recently passed two child care bills with some Republican support. One bill proposes $50 billion in funding, the other includes tax subsidies for working families and other measures. Neither currently appears close to becoming law
Misty Heggeness, an economist who wrote about the pandemic’s effect on working mothers for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, says short-term changes could help. States could relax licensing requirements so day cares can hire more staff and encourage more people to open in-home day care centers.
Those measures could also help child-care providers that either shut down or saw enrollment plunge in early spring as a result of the outbreak.