One of the six projects that RWJF selected as part of this new body of work was a collaboration between the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA) and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), focused on the new economy and
child care for low-income families, particularly those with parents working nonstandard hours.
In the end, everyone--you as a parent and the
child care provider staff as a whole--wants what is best for your child.
According to the federal Office of
Child Care and the Annie E.
Three cities in Pennsylvania Allentown, Harrisburg and Pittsburgh are considered to be among the nation's worst
child care deserts, according to the Arlington, Virginia-based
child care advocacy group
Child Care Aware.
As a result, the high cost of
child care is becoming a particularly salient issue, with pressure building for government to "do more" to support it, not least as a means of helping poor families.
"For example, 14 percent of national survey respondents reported that, in the previous year, someone in the family had to quit a job, forego taking a job, or greatly change a job because of problems with
child care."
To analyze the effects of
child care expenses on the poverty rate, we assembled a data file consisting of the five most recent years, 2012-2016 (capturing poverty from 2011-2015) of the Current Population Survey's Annual Social and Economic Supplement, downloaded from IPUMS.
* Massachusetts: 69.12 (Total Score), 11 (Economic/Social Standing), 11 (Work-Life Balance), 3 (
Child Care), 2 (Health)
In every state, the average cost of center-based infant
child care is more than 24% of median income for single parents.
According to Elisabeth Ballermann, secretary-treasurer of the National Union of Public and General Employees, the union representing many of the province's early childhood educators, "Research has shown the impact affordable
child care can have on the economy, allowing women to return to the workforce more smoothly and with the success of children."
With 61 percent of all children under age 5 in the United States in some type of regular
child care arrangement in 2011,
child care is a necessary work expense for many American families (Laughlin, 2013).