LISTEN TO LEARN AND TAKE ACTION: CHILD CARE IS IN CRISIS

“They’re really trying to weigh the balance between safety of themselves, of the children, of the people who come to work with them against their own financial needs. It’s really costly to stay open, and it’s also costly to shut. And so they’re trying to figure out, you know, can I afford to stay open? I want to serve my community. Can I keep doing that? A lot of them feel a sense of service – or do I need to protect myself and my workers and just close my doors?” …

“It’s sometimes surprising to hear how thin the margins are in child care because parents are usually spending a huge amount of their budget on child care. But it’s a business that’s hard to find cost efficiencies because all of your expenses are relatively fixed. You need to have a certain number of adults in the room to adequately care for children. You have rent. You have food. You have cleaning supplies. All of those costs are hard to reduce. So it’s a high-cost business, and parents can only afford to spend so much. So providers kind of get stuck in the middle not making very much money and not able to pay very high wages.”  Bryce Covert, reporter for The Nation as quoted in the interview linked below.

Listen to this 5-minute NPR feature…and please take action (view Monday, May 12,  News + Events item to do so!)

Thank you!