Expensive childcare costs, childcare deserts, overworked and underpaid providers, childcare centers closing down and mothers forced out of the workforce — these are just some of the problems America is facing today when it comes to childcare.
But before all of this happened, there was once a golden time for young parents and their children when universal childcare was funded by the government. In this blog, we take a quick tour into the history of childcare in America and see how the present initiatives plan to resolve childcare issues for a better future.
Past: When Working Moms Paid 50 to 75 Cents ($7-$11) for Childcare in America
Before World War II, the care of young children fell onto family members, older siblings or for richer families, private nurseries. When wartime came, the government needed women to augment the workforce for factories, but found mothers unable to answer to the call.
To resolve this, the government passed the Lanham Act, paving the way for funding daycare centers that cared for children of mothers working wartime jobs. From late 1942 to 1943, communities opened the first daycare centers for children all over America, propped up by government funding. Model day care centers were constructed but those were the exceptions. A vast majority of childcare centers during the war were mostly makeshift, or in basements.
Due to government funding, mothers only had to pay fifty to seventy-five cents ($7.90 – $11.85 in April 2021 prices when adjusted for inflation) for each child.
While the daycare centers proved to be instrumental in having mothers contribute to the war efforts without having to worry about their children’s development, most mothers were hesitant to enroll their children at first. But it was the only way to work.
After the war ended, so did the daycare centers close. If mothers were hesitant at the beginning of the daycare initiatives, they were now clamoring for daycare centers to remain open after seeing positive results in their children’s development.
However, universal childcare was not to last. Funding ceased in 1946. As parents continued to lobby for universal childcare through the next decades, it was President Nixon who sealed the door shut against any form of universal childcare when he vetoed the Comprehensive Child Development Act in 1971.
Present: The Childcare Deserts of America and the Pandemic That Showed the Necessity of Childcare
Fast forward to today, there is no government funding for universal childcare, there are large swathes of childcare deserts all over the country, and childcare costs keep on increasing so much that it takes more than half of a single parent’s income.
Before the pandemic, the Center for American Progress (CAP) reported 51% of Americans were already living in so-called childcare deserts. A childcare desert is an area where there are not enough licensed childcare centers.
In 2019 alone, 53% of the states have already reported a decline in childcare centers while 79% of states reported dwindling numbers for family-based childcare. When the pandemic hit in 2020, childcare centers and family-based ones which were already feeling the pressure to make a profit, operating on razor-thin margins were forced to shut down. Unfortunately, for some, it was also the pandemic that gave their business a crushing blow.
Future: Childcare Costs will be Brought Down to 7% of a Parent’s Income
As childcare centers closed down, the impact reverberated across the American economy. Suddenly, working parents, mostly mothers, had to cut back on work hours to allocate time for childcare. Some even had to stop working.
As the new administration stepped in and vaccines rolled out, the reopening of the American economy was pushed for but it’s yet to gain a good enough trajectory into post-pandemic boom.
As childcare centers are forced to open on lessened capacity, parents are still unable to find ways on how to make work and childcare work at the same time.
Lucky for most working families, the Biden administration has released the American Families Plan act that seeks to subsidize childcare costs for families with young children to help working parents come back to work with ease.
The act introduces expanded tax credits for almost 90% of families, with up to $300 credit for each child. Parents of newborns are even eligible for a higher tax credit. The minimum dependent qualification to be eligible for the new childcare tax credit is that the child should be an American citizen with a social security number.
As this new tax credit is introduced, the Biden administration hopes it can help working American parents afford childcare again.
It’s still too early to say whether this new tax credit is the long awaited solution to the childcare crisis in America, but it’s definitely a progressive step in the right direction.
READ NEXT: Child tax credits 2021: eligibility, payments threshold, schedule, & IRS online portals
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