Absent federal action, local jurisdictions are increasingly looking for ways to help working parents.
America is waking up to child care as a major political issue. Back in January, President Obama discussed it at length for the first time in his State of the Union address. “In today’s economy, when having both parents in the workforce is an economic necessity for many families, we need affordable, high-quality childcare more than ever,” the president said, as parents around the country cheered (or shouted “Finally!” in exasperation).
Our child-care problem is really a cluster of them. First, there is the cost. On average, according to a 2014 report by Child Care Aware, parents of an infant in Massachusetts spend a shocking $16,549 per year for child care—that's 53 percent more than public-college tuition. And Massachusetts is not an outlier: In his speech, Obama talked about a Minnesota family who spend more on child care than on their mortgage, which is not that uncommon.
The next problem is availability. As any parent knows, finding child care can be tough, and the younger your child is, the fewer your options. Quality is inconsistent and not great overall—more than 80 percent of day care centers nationwide are rated merely “fair,” according to Child Care Aware. Plus, child-care workers in general are underpaid, earning a median wage of $9.38 an hour.
So what’s to be done? In his 2016 budget, Obama proposed a new tax cut of up to $3,000 per child, per year, to offset child-care expenses. He would further allocate $80 billion to child-care help for low-income families, and subsidize preschool for disadvantaged four-year-olds by raising the tobacco tax. Whether any of these measures make it through budget negotiations remains to be seen.
But meaningful action on child care and early education is lately emerging from a different quarter—cities and counties. This is a relatively new development in a field where decisions have long been made at the state and federal levels.
No one has staked more on the issue than New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. The centerpiece of his campaign in 2013 was the promise of universal, free pre-kindergarten for all four-year-olds. After he took office, de Blasio had to fight Governor Andrew Cuomo to get his plan funded, but he won, and last fall, more than 50,000 children enrolled in pre-K classes across the city. De Blasio has also expanded after-school care for middle schoolers, with the goal of providing enough spaces for all of them.
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