The Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor issued a report yesterday about the cost of child care. It uses data from their newly launched National Database of Childcare Prices, and I was interested to discover that the most expensive place in the country for child care is California:
The main takeaway from the report was their conclusion that "childcare prices are untenable for families across all care types, age groups, and county population sizes." I suppose I don't doubt that, but I was disappointed that they didn't show the price of child care over time. As you may recall, "compared to what?" is the key question to ask about nearly any sociological claim.
So I did it myself, which turned out to be a far bigger pain in the butt than I anticipated. Here it is for a random collection of big and small counties plus a population-weighted national average:¹
The database only goes back to 2008, so this is all we have. Nationally, the price of preschool went up 7% between 2008-18 after adjustments for inflation, most of which was due to price rises in big population centers. Boston (Suffolk County) was up 18%, for example, and Los Angeles was up 15%. By contrast, smaller counties were generally up by no more more than a few percentage points.
None of this is to say that families don't have a hard time paying for child care. Obviously they do. Both this report and long-term inflation data suggest that the cost of child care has been rising steadily for decades by a little less than half a percent per year.
My interpretation of this is that child care may not be in a sudden crisis right now, but at the very least it's a long-term time bomb. Unfortunately, it's all but impossible to get Republicans to care about it. I wonder how sure they are that their constituents are OK with this?
¹This is for preschool. The report and the database also cover infant care and toddler care.
As someone paying for preschool right now it's About $12,000 a year for us in a small midwest city. They raised prices $10 a week starting this year (2023). We can barely pay with help from my parents. But the preschool still has trouble retaining enough staff. They had to partially close for a week last December due to not having enough staff for kids 3-5. I'd say the start of the crisis has arrived.
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I am going to split you open from the inside.
And that's for "full time" care.
Of course if the day care center's hours don't correspond to your work hours....
Their constituents aren't even aware of it so they won't care until Fox News starts playing it in the rotation. In the meantime, they are still going to vote on god and guns, against the gays and also against Those People.
My interpretation of this is that child care may not be in a sudden crisis right now, but at the very least it's a long-term time bomb.
My interpretation is that quality childcare has long been expensive and is steadily (if not rapidly) growing more so (Baumol effects), but, both because there's no obvious, innovative solution (robots?) and because society does not prioritize it, families mostly just make do*, at a considerable cost in reduced job opportunities, productivity and overall prosperity.
*The make do copes are: less earning power and/or reliance on non-regulated sitters. The second of these two options is as old as our species, and, if we're being honest, can work just fine, although it should be a choice, not a necessity. In China it's incredibly common for grandparents to flat out move-in and live with young couples, expressly for the purpose of caring for grandchildren.
Infant care is the real killer, especially after weeks of unpaid maternity leave and paying the hospital bill.
So $1100/mo in LA. Kinda thought it'd be more - say 2-3k/month - given the complaining I hear from friends about the cost. Wonder why centers have trouble hiring and making profits, bringing in 10-20 thousand per classroom? Smaller classrooms, regulations, real estate overhead?
This is another one of those issues that democrats pushed and that no one really cares about. I don't have young children. Not my problem. So now that we're going to start cutting spending on Medicare and Social security, this is a dead end. Oh well.
I, Me, Mine.
Nice.
Republican constituents are dead set against any viable option to fix the problem, so it doesn't matter if they are happy about the current state of affairs or not. If anything, their anti-abortion position is aiming to make the problem worse.
I live in France, raised my kids all alone while working, and didn't pay a penny for preschool education and care. Not. One. Cent. Except for meals, and even that only when I moved from the city to a more cash-starved countryside.
And it's not progressiveness but World War One. There were so few ablebodied men left in the factories that women were called in. Thus public childcare came into being. When the capitalist class wants it, "socialism" can go real fast.
That's great we have something called the "Women's Bureau."
In New Mexico (left gray on the map), the Governor pressed for free child care during the pandemic, and (I think; I'm not currently affected) got it implemented. The new CYFD boss is further working to ensure that the state-subsidized child care providers have the credentials to actually teach the preschoolers in their care.
This has continued long after the Covid lockdown years, and is expected to be made permanent.