So What, Who Cares (vol 1, issue 18) How U.S. policy hits parents right in the wallet
A story came out a few months ago reporting that in 31 states in the U.S., an average year of childcare cost more than an average year of tuition at a state university; it followed on the news that the cost of an average year of child care typically exceeded the food budget for that same family. That discovery made one very good point -- that child care costs a heck of a lot from the beginning and there's no ramp-up to save for it like there is for college.
Child care in the U.S. is expensive. It's also a logical sequel to how the U.S. regards new parents, period: You will recall that the U.S. is one of only three countries in the entire world not to have a paid parental leave policy at the national level.
And that sort of (lack of) public policy carries on past birth. As the Wharton School of Business opined recently in "Why Child Care Is The Economy's 'Invisible' Driver"
When we compare what we do as a nation to what other developed countries do in terms of child care, it’s embarrassing and it’s tragic,” says Stewart Friedman, practice professor of management at Wharton. “Part of it is rooted in the American ethos of individualism. You’re supposed to make it on your own.”
(If you would like to feel some serious rage, check out Brigid Schulte's Overwhelmed and read the chapter where she details how back in the 1970s Pat Buchanan torpedoed a bill that would have created a high-quality universal child-care system in America -- a bill that enjoyed both Congressional support and wide public approval. And how, 40 years on, Pat Buchanan is all, "I did it because women should stay home and men should work, and there's no reason for it to be otherwise." Except, you know, real life is totally different.)
As for how child care drives the economy: People who are turning over the equivalent of their food budget (or greater) to childcare providers do not have a lot of disposable income, so they're not fueling the engine of consumption that drives the American economy. It's also worth noting that child care pressures can push talented people out of the workforce, or trap them in jobs where they're not productive (absenteeism due to childcare issues costs the U.S. economy $3 billion annually).
So what? The burden of child care costs hit two specific groups the hardest: Young parents at the beginnings of their careers (who are also under pressure to start all that retirement saving, and all that college saving, and who have student loans...) and lower-income families, who can spend up to 52% of their income on child care.
Who cares? Economists. With birth rates dropping and increasing numbers of young adults saying they don't see any way they can afford to be parents in the U.S., we're heading for a country with a vast amount of old people (many of whom have not been saving for retirement, remember) and a much smaller amount of younger workers to feed the Social Security kitty.
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In addition to driving the U.S. economy, child care also knits its smaller communities together. Preschool teachers and daycare workers go to parent-teacher meetings where parents cannot, take kids to the doctor during medical emergencies, even cook kids dinner when the parents are running late. The kicker -- these small-scale early childhood caretakers/educators in small communities usually make about $22,000-30,000 per year, less than half of what a prison guard makes.
So what? There's a lot more economic incentive to do anything other than become a hard-working early childhood educator. When you give time-outs in prison, you are making twice as much per hour.
Who cares? The working parents who want creative, patient, conscientious teachers who love their jobs (and, one hopes, the kids). Also with a stake in this situation are the bright, talented people who feel called to this job but can't afford to do something that would benefit both our smallest members of society and our larger communities.
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Grantland has a really nice essay on Shark Tank, the "reality" show on ABC that has entrepreneurs dancing for dollars (metaphorically) in front of a bunch of bored billionaires. I am, of course, hooked on the show, mostly because I think Robert Herjavec's hair could repel bullets and one day, that superpower will be shown on television.
So what? The essay points out, correctly:
Shark Tank paints a very particular picture of American business — a homegrown idea, a handmade prototype, and soon you’re selling in Walgreens and buying a yacht! — that is totally divorced from the vaguer and much more significant ways that people make money in this country.
Who cares? You will, when you attend the annual Thanksgiving dinner and the uncle who seems to delight in antagonizing you shouts across the stuffing that you should make something of yourself by inventing something for Shark Tank. Then you can call back that no thank you, you're interested in odds that are better than a 0.3 percent chance of getting on air. Throwing a statistic at Uncle will likely send him sputtering into an unrelated monologue, and then you and your cohort can all see how many squares on Uncle Says The Craziest Things Bingo you fill.
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