Do We All Really Win With Better Policies?
Unpacking the idea of "winners" and "losers" in child care
I didn’t begin child care beat reporting until the Covid-19 pandemic, when I, along with the rest of world, saw how hard it was to function without it.
And since then, at least two states have invested heavily in child care, providing a neat and handy experimental group to ask the question: what happens when you create a robust child care system? Who wins and who loses?
In my latest article for The Thread, a policy-oriented publication from New America, I explore this theme of who wins and who loses when we invest in child care. I pull from my on-the-ground reporting in Vermont and New Mexico to show the stories of:
-Sherry Boudro, a child care provider whose salary is now doubled, enabling her to save for retirement. At age 60, she has no retirement savings because her work has always been paycheck- to-paycheck (something I have heard from many child care providers, including Sandra Parra in New Mexico, the other state to invest in care and see major changes).
-Michele Asch, a business leader who wanted to solve child care on her own, but realized the “fix it” mentality wouldn’t work on a small scale - child care was infrastructure. “I don’t pay individually to have our roads done,” Asch explained. “I pay into a system to have the trucks come in to pick up [our] soap. [Child care] is necessary infrastructure for doing business.”
Read the full piece on The Thread here.
But someone recently asked me why I keep focusing on these two petri-dish states that have invested in child care - when clearly there are so many others languishing and so many other band-aid investments that sound good on a press release but do little to solve the major problems of child care.
(The band-aid investments I’m referring to are the ones that make a very small change that do little to improve access or quality to care, or payment or benefits for the providers. Little is better than nothing, yes, but there is a legit concern that by celebrating too many band-aids we’re missing the chance to demand real change. And if you want to read more about why we aren’t demanding change out loud, check out this primer on child care movements in the United States that I wrote with
).The reason I keep coming back to Vermont + New Mexico is this: they deserve our attention because they are ditching the band-aids and trying to prove that the greater economy and population wins when we invest in children. They are saying: there is enough for everyone to thrive. An economy where we all win—individually and together—is in reach. They are showing that such investment in care can produce significant positive externalities for people, even those not directly affected.
They are actively rejecting the idea that we live in a rigged system built for a few people to prosper. This is well documented by the lack of available, affordable child care for many, and we see what broad changes can be made for families when they are given access to affordable care. Take the case of Teigue Linch, whose child care payments for her twins were cut by over $2000 each month under Vermont’s Act 76. She and her husband started college savings accounts for the twins, and the financial strain they were under has greatly loosened. Or Sandra Parra, the child care provider in New Mexico, whose higher salary means she can afford a downpayment on her home and pay off her car.
States that are taking action are also pushing against the outdated idea that for some to succeed, others must suffer. For child care, this can mean “I found a workable solution on my own so you should too” but evidence actually shows that families and businesses would benefit from more care options. This also includes people who opt out of traditional care and are looking for systems of support, even while not performing wage work. This also - as I have written about before - should include parents who opt to stay at home and care for their kids on their own. It’s something both Vermont and New Mexico haven’t done, and it’s something even generous countries like Finland do not do sufficiently past a child’s third birthday. But if we want a true system of care and choice, this option should also be on the table.
Here is my question for you, dear readers. What notion about child care has been the hardest for you to shake? I’d love to hear what resonates with you and what has evolved in your thinking over the years.
As a New Mexico resident and a parent who had to pay for child care while employed as a public school teacher, making $30 grand annually back then (more than a decades ago admittedly, although the same pay scale was in effect until 2020), I do think childcare should be provided for those in economic need.
I lived in Santa Fe back then, and there are lots of scheming middle and upper class parents who'd also like to access such services while decrying the need to pay taxes. I'm not so bullish on helping the rich, even with child care: they get enough tax breaks as it is, from low capital gains taxes to write offs on home mortgages.
We also need to get our immigration policy under control, and yes, this affects our ability to afford benefits like subsidized childcare. It doesn't work if we ask American voters to foot the bill for not just their fellow citizens but also people here under dubious arrangements like self proclaimed refugee status. We're the second poorest state already, so the tax base is limited.
The idea immigrants don't commit crimes or use social services needs revision: legal immigrants are law abiding because they have a precious green card at stake. I'm fine with a limited number of vetted, usefully educated newcomers arriving, we can use their talents. Illegal or undocumented immigrants do commit crimes at relatively high rates because they have fewer and more poorly paid alternatives for employment. Everyone here sees this with their own eyes: we've only 2 million or so residents and most of them live in a handful of cities. Look up the crime rate in our largest urban area, Albuquerque before you insist immigrants don't add to local crime rates. Talk to the local cops and you'll hear lots of horror stories of how those willing to break the law to get here don't stop once they're inside our borders.
So unfortunately the goal of increasing childcare intersects with larger social issues around immigration and poverty. If supporters want to achieve their goal of a durable increase in access to affordable child care these issues will have to be addressed too. Then there is the competition for scarce dollars to fix the roads, take care of the aged, and other government services like police and courts.
Is subsidized child care a laudable goal? Absolutely. Is it more critical than other government services we all use and rely on though? Highly doubtful taxpayers without young children will agree.
Can it be done frugally and not be abused to the point tax payers rebel? That too will be another hurdle that must be vaulted cleanly to prevent any progress on this front from backsliding.
We're lots of pressing problems in New Mexico. I'm not sure this goal, even though I support a well run child care program being rolled out, rises to the top in our state's needs. I'd much rather see our abysmal Child Protective Services expanded and improved, because our current funding and abilities to protect the kids in the worst of worst situations is beyond depressing (I currently still teach school in a poor, former coal mining town in the state and see this far too often with my own eyes).
I think free child care a worthy goal, but not as critical as stopping children who are being neglected or abused from further trauma. As a New Mexican resident and tax payer that's where I'd rather see our scarce dollars to help kids go. Once that's done, then we can turn out attention to what we'd like, as opposed to what we need.
Michelle Asch is not alone, Rebecca. I was surprised to see the same drive in her that I observed in Luiza Trajano, a business leader in Brazil who is also invested in policy change for better childcare and equality. More than 20 years ago, she created a program called "Mom's Check," where female workers received assistance to pay caregivers for their children up to 11 years old so they could go to work. The caregivers were often their own mothers, aunts, grandmothers, and neighbors. During the pandemic, the financial assistance was doubled.
To encourage female workers to advance in their careers, she also created a program with exclusive benefits to help mothers attend managerial training, which included enhanced financial support and flexibility so the training could take place closer to these women's homes. She was the main leader behind the initiative known as "Mulheres do Brasil" (Women of Brazil), created in 2013 by 40 women from different sectors with the goal of engaging civil society in achieving improvements for the country. The organization is led by businesswoman Luiza Helena Trajano and has 134k participants in Brazil and abroad, aiming to become the largest suprapartisan political group in the country.