Solution to the Child Care Crisis? It's Closer Than You Think

Child care costs more than college in the United States.

Parents can pay upwards of $20,000 per child per year — but most child care businesses struggle to break even. Now half of all Americans live in child care deserts.

We went to Minnesota where lawmakers have a plan to fix our broken child care system.
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[HypatiaMuse]

It's also sad that despite all that $ parents spend on daycare, the workers actually providing the care are paid peanuts. Same situation with Eldercare.

[loober]

In corporate America childcare is not profitable enough to make money = childcare is given lowest priority.

[belle_bagay]

we’re also moving past the time of the grandparents supplementing childcare since many elderly can’t afford to retire or had to return to the workforce.

[sailorstarfairy]

And then People wonder why the youngest generations don't want to have kids. 🤦🏻‍♀️

[leonardodavinci]

"Why is no one having kids?"

[yliannamarie]

Childcare work doesn’t pay a living wage.

[bobbullethalf]

We can’t afford housing and food, how can you afford to raise a child?

[TogetherForeverOct]

I HATED WORKING in the Daycare and it wasn’t the kids. I got paid literally nothing to spend so many hours with other peoples kids, potty, training, teaching ABC’s and more, weaned off of paci’s and so much more and only made $9.50 an hour with 1 week off. For my morale it sucked.

[amybradbury]

This is why I, a college educated woman, am a stay at home mom. Where I lived, I could not earn enough to keep my child in a good daycare, and I could not make peace with the sketchy daycares. Then I had a second child, and it just made financial sense to give up on any career and stay home. I don't regret it, but this is a problem that needs to be fixed.

[DrJinh]

Yup. The US childcare is crazy. I'm a Canadian living in MA and I can tell you the cost is crazy here. So my wife and my daughter were finally got their green cards and they are finally moving to MA. I'm currently looking for a preschool program for my daughter and the tuition is on average 2500$ per month... Our childcare in Ontario, Canada, was around 1600$ and it was considered very expensive. Last year, the Ontario government started to subsidize the program and at the end, we were paying around 1000$. My friends who live in Quebec pay even less. 7$ per day daycare because the Quebec government subsidize the program. The US government should take care of its citizens instead of funding War industries...

[AvelierPlays]

Less weapons, less war, less bases in foreign soil.

More healthcare, more education, more social institutions.

The US has its priorities backwards and the citizens allow it.

[ninehundreddollarluxuryyac]

There once was an America where one person earned enough to support a family. Wives stayed home and raised their children. Then women had to work because it took two full time incomes to pay rent and buy food. Grandparents raised the kids. Now grandparents have to re-enter the workforce or are unable to retire because costs have gone up again compared to wages. The current situation is like the great depression when monopolists controlled the government and before labor unions forced fair pay.

[youtubeuniversity]

Basically:

Life is becoming too expensive and needs fixed.

[kaseywahl]

It makes my blood boil knowing the kinds of things that local, state, and the federal government will spend money on in the us and knowing that they will absolutely refuse to spend on the things that make life worth living for American citizens.

This is not the country I grew up in anymore.

[sexybluelady]

The biggest elephant in the room that no one ever wants to talk about is how just two generations ago it was black women that were nearly forced into watching everyone's children. The host of the video brought it up in a quick blimp when he said it was mostly women that were the daycare watchers. But what is left out is that it was nearly only black women that were the daycare watchers for less than pennies on the dollar. And that is why no one cared to fix the system, that was extremely exploitive, because it wasn't a white middle class problem. It wasn't until recently within the last 40ish years, when the door opened up for black women to have better job opportunities that "white folk" were left bumbling with the problem of having to figure out who was going to watch their children for now on, and for gasp, "fair wages and benefits". NOW everyone notices and cares about how broken this system is, and is rushing to try to figure out how to fix centuries of free child care labour.

[toontownlegomaster]

what saddens me is like child care is so expensive and then you'll hear on the news of the abuse that children go through in those daycares it just sickening.

[codbdup]

And when the child tax credit needed to renewed during Covid every single Republican in Congress voted against it. The child tax credit is the biggest incentive to have children.

[melissam.]

12 weeks of family leave does not take infants out of the equation. They are considered infants until they move into toddler rooms, usually 14-16 months. There should be family leave to care for infants up until that point. The state I work in, PA, gives NO paid leave for having a baby. This has to change.

[AmberSoleil]

I drive 30 minutes to a daycare I can afford. The others are so expensive they may as well not exist. We pay $325 a week or $16, 900 a year. It’s suffocatingly expensive

[marenjones]

The issue is that people aren't paid enough to take care of their own. Period. End of story. Parents have to work insane hours to never see their kids. There is zero tolerance for homemaking. Not allowance, *tolerance*. You take a few hours for an annual check up? That's a whole day coming out of your sick leave, and you have to arrange your own coverage. You want to be at home at a set time? Your boss cuts your opportunities to earn. You need to take a week for a major repair of your home? Lol, no, you're fired, and we tell any future employers that you're unwilling to do assigned tasks, that you're unreliable.
Oh, and if you're a woman who does any of these things? Expect at least double punishment, and kiss any advancement goodbye.
This is true in every major industry. Rail and air basically penalize any time you're not at the wheel, resulting in failing health and an increase of near misses. Factory and farm work force you to pay for your own equipment, one way or the other, resulting in accidents. Healthcare workers are guilted into impossible shifts in understaffed facilities, but can't afford to live near their work.
This isn't a childcare crisis. It's a crisis of homelessness. Even if you can afford a place to live, you can't afford to actually spend any time there. You have no time or energy to maintain your house or family. Moreover, the community help you would have relied on for those tasks, grandparents, neighbors, pastors, they're a ll in the same boat.
No one respects the home, and people are dying because of it.