Paying for Day Care:
Mission Impossible

Sep 30, 2024

Three out of every four women in the workforce are mothers, and a whole lot of them are finding it more and more impossible to pay for day care. In two-parent families, some have even chosen for one parent to stay home with the young ones, because they cannot find affordable day care.

In one out of six of the largest cities in the U.S., day care actually has an average cost higher than the average cost of rent. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, child care on average is $1,767 per month, while rent averages $1,622. Another survey found families paying $325 per week for day care. No wonder the surgeon general recently warned that “parental stress” is a growing problem.

Without two people to pay rent, or two jobs or more for a single parent, day care gets further out of reach in the richest country in the world. In other rich countries, governments pay thousands of dollars for young children to have public day care every month, but not in the U.S.

The U.S. government and local governments constantly skimp on decent educations, for both the youngest and the oldest children, both in big cities and in rural areas. That’s why day care providers on average only earn minimum wage! We deserve to have our children well-looked after, but our politicians claim, despite the largest military budget on the planet, that there’s not enough money to pay for child care or other education needs. Moms come last.