Everybody wants to see their child thrive. Affordable and high quality child care is critical to that vision, as it provides children with a nurturing environment that their developing brains and bodies need to ensure a successful future. It also enables parents to pursue employment and educational opportunities that are a foundation for a family’s economic security. For years, childcare has suffered from chronic underinvestment. Childcare is unaffordable for every family in the United States, even though child care workers are short in supply and are not paid sufficient salaries. Lack of proper child care affects all children, as they lose out on valuable education and care that help them thrive. Lack of child care for children is an issue that has worsened with the coronavirus pandemic, as essential workforce personnel, such as healthcare workers, have no way for their children to be taken care of, as schools and other facilities have shut down. Parents deal with this issue everyday, not just in times of crisis. In order to combat the lack of childcare services, increased federal funding is needed. The government must invest more in childcare, as it would make it affordable and available, would allow women and families to pursue employment opportunities which would boost the economy, and would raise the pay of the entire early childhood workforce, which would enable programs to recruit and retain high skilled educators for high quality care. Federal investment into childcare is crucial, and a necessity to ensure all children have an equal chance to prosper.
The United States has failed to invest in child care for decades, leading to a lack of affordable, high quality options. Childcare is necessary for mothers and families to work and earn an income, but it has become an increasingly crushing expense for families over the years. Just over the past two decades, the cost of child care has more than doubled, while wages have remained mostly stagnant. Child care consumes most of families paychecks. The national average cost of care for one child in a center amounts to about $10,000 per year, which is far beyond what most families can pay. Nationwide, more than half of the population lives in childcare deserts, or areas where the number of children under the age of five far outstrips the number of available childcare spots. With the problem of not being able to afford childcare, parents also struggle with finding it in the first place. Hispanic/Latino families disproportionately reside in child care deserts, with nearly 60% of their population living in areas with an undersupply of licensed care. Urban neighborhoods are also more likely to be child care deserts than not, with 56% of urban census tracts showing child care supply gaps. If government funding for childcare were increased, families would be able to afford childcare more and would have it be more accessible. Its impossible for anyone to find affordable childcare in the United States, simply because it doesn’t exist. Directly supporting childcare and investing in the system would reduce costs greatly for all families and ensure that everyone has access to childcare.
Today, any families with young children must make a choice between spending a significant portion of their income on child care, finding a cheaper, but potentially lower care option, or leaving the workforce all together to become a full-time caregiver. Due to high costs, limited availability, and inconvenient program hours, challenges with childcare are driving parents, and mostly mothers, out of the workforce. In 2016, 2 million parents made career sacrifices due to problems with childcare. In 2018, mothers were 40% more likely than fathers to report that they had personally felt the negative impact of child care issues on their careers. Too often, mothers make job decisions based on childcare, not on their financial interests or career goals. There is a growing awareness of the links among access to child care, parental employment, and overall economic growth. Mothers have to miss work, take pay cuts, work fewer hours, or leave their jobs all together. American businesses lose an estimated $12.7 billion annually because of their employees’ child care challenges. Nationally, the cost of lost earnings, productivity, and revenue due to the child care crisis totals an estimated %57 billion dollars each year. Improving childcare has the potential to boost employment and earnings for working mothers. ⅓ of the decrease in women’s labor force can be explained to lack of childcare and paid leave. Policies aimed at alleviating the burden of paying for child care have been shown to promote mothers’ participation in the labor force.Studies have shown that women who take just one year off of work, earn 40% less than the women who did not take off. Policies that help reduce cost and increase availability of early childhood education programs have positive effects on maternal labor participation and work hours. Overall, paying less out of pocket for child care, coupled with mothers increased ability to work, would help promote greater family economic stability and in turn, child well being. Its critical to expanding and sustaining the nation’s workforce and growing economy. Providing childcare assistance to all low and middle income working families would enable an estimated 1.6 million more mothers to enter the workforce. Another estimate posits that capping child care payments at 10% of a family’s income would yield %70 billion each year and increase women’s labor force participation enough to boost U.S GDP by 1.2%. Supporting access to child care would also save employers money on lost revenue associated with losing parent employees due to child care problems as well as the costs to train and hire new employees. Long is the age of stay at home moms. In today’s modern world, mothers shouldn’t have to give up their careers to take care of children if it is not necessary. Government investment into childcare would greatly benefit working mothers and the economy, as rate of returns are high and would result in more of an economic boost than a loss.
Childcare workers are paid insufficient salaries for them to be able to afford the cost of living. Because of this, there is a shortage of supply of childcare workers, but an extreme amount of demand for it. The childcare programs that operate today do so on slim budgets that scarcely cover staff salaries, which lead experiences early educators to seek better paying jobs elsewhere. The median child care worker earns only $10.72 per hour. As a result, turnover is high in the child care industry. Paying teachers a living wage is a key component of child care quality, as an educators ability to be attentive and responsive to the children in her care is closely tied to their own economic security. The early years of a child’s life are the most crucial to their development. Most children don’t have access to care and education that stimulate their brains in their early years. Arguably, investing in childcare is probably more important than investing in high level education. If care workers were given sufficient salaries that reflected their hard work, they would be more likely to stay in their child care jobs and not leave to find higher paying ones. Children should not be denied the opportunity to a fair development and education just because child care workers don’t get paid enough. Recruitment and retainment of childcare workers would greatly increase with funding from the government, ensuring every child is taken care of.
Long are the days of stay at home moms and child care workers who cant afford their dinners. Long as the days where parents have to spend incessant amounts on childcare that drains their finances and doesn’t allow them to pursue employment opportunities. Most importantly, long are the days where children are denied early education and care because of their parents can’t afford the costs. Every child, regardless of their socioeconomic class, race, or gender should receive proper care that ensures a nurturing development, paving way for a prosperous future.
- This is a very ROUGH draft. I just piled a bunch of facts together and don’t make any claims. It’s just a start so go easy on me :)))
Hey there! This is really good, and don’t worry mine is the same way! It’s a rough draft though so this is the time for it! (:
2). Comment on scope of the thesis and whether or not it was convincingly argued. What improvements are needed to make it more convincing?
I think this was strong especially for the draft! I think if you keep thinking about it and keep adding things to your draft your thesis may keep changing in small ways so it can be the best it can if it’s not it right now but I think it is fine!
3). Comment on the evidence for the policy or its implementation. Does the draft need stronger sources to support the arguments? What kinds?
Like you said this is a draft and we have a lot to keep adding until it is due! But in your draft, I do see evidence that clearly supports your claims! It is great that you have statistics in the paper and that is definitely what makes these things strong and accurate. I am not sure how many sources you have but never a bad idea to keep searching for information and adding it.
4). Did the piece handle questions of feasibility or objections to the policy?
I think so– from my understanding you did and it was all pretty clear. I am sure though for full thing there will be more because I am still in the works with mine.
5). Comment on any improvements to arrangement that could be considered.
I like the way it is organized right now. Your claim is strong then you move right into the facts and the argument. I like how you informed the reader how it is right now, gave some background on the topic and then went into how it needs to change.
6). Comment on the structure of the issue brief, including subtitles.
I didn’t see any subtitles but I am sure they are just in the works! I would be happy to look at them later if you want!
7). Make one recommendation for something that could be moved, changed, added, or deleted.
Overall really good. One recommendation I could recommend is maybe just making sure each section has it’s own thing going for it. I found that in my paper I kept saying some of the same things that were in different sections so maybe just articulate the main message for each section!
Great Job!
Hey, no worries! Mine is the same — I have lots of work to do!
2). Comment on scope of the thesis and whether or not it was convincingly argued. What improvements are needed to make it more convincing?
I think it is pretty clear and is very convincing. I would leave it as is to be honest! Like you said, this is kind of an outline, so as you add more to it you can make simple edits as you deem necessary to make it even better!
3). Comment on the evidence for the policy or its implementation. Does the draft need stronger sources to support the arguments? What kinds?
I definitely think you need more evidence (I’m sure you have started looking for graphs, too) to help support your argument but I know you are looking for more because it’s just a rough draft. The evidence you do have is very good — it is FULL of statistics which is great and really strengthens your argument.
4). Did the piece handle questions of feasibility or objections to the policy?
Yes, for what you currently have it is good, but it could definitely be better as you add more information as you get closer to your final version.
5). Comment on any improvements to arrangement that could be considered.
I think the organization of the information is great! I also like your somewhat introductory sentences at the start of each paragraph.
6). Comment on the structure of the issue brief, including subtitles.
The one thing I would suggest here is to perhaps make your paragraphs smaller. For example, you should add headers and under those headers you can include all of the same information, but break it up into small paragraphs so it is easier to read. Mine was like this at first too but then I realized it needed to be more like an infographic than an essay. Super simple fix!
7). Make one recommendation for something that could be moved, changed, added, or deleted.
Generally, I think something that would benefit your paper is more evidence, but I would consider more quotes and different styles of evidence — you already have a lot of statistics, which is great! I just think it would really enhance the paper if the new evidence you add as you work towards finishing this brief is not statistical, variety is key! It looks great so far, keep up the good work.