48 Time November 2/November 9, 2020
week in unemployment pay provided by
the CARES Act—a provision that expired
in July. This summer in Florida, an un-
employed worker could have received as
much as $875 per week from both state
and federal unemployment benefits.
That’s close to twice what the average
childcare worker makes normally.
But part of the problem facing child-
care operators looking to rehire staff may
also be widespread instability across the
industry. The shaky economics of running
a day-care facility combined with the un-
certainty of the ongoing pandemic, which
continues to worsen in many parts of the
country, makes employment in the sec-
tor unsavory to some. It’s unclear if pro-
viders who are hired back now will still
have a job in a month or a year. According
to CAP data provided to TIME, the costs
of providing center- based childcare have
increased by an average of 47% since be-
fore COVID-19. In California, costs have
jumped 54%, and in Georgia, they’ve sky-
rocketed 115%.
Home-based childcare facilities, which
served up to 30% of infants and toddlers
before the pandemic, are also suffering.
Such facilities usually enroll fewer kids,
which some parents may see as a bene-
fit during COVID-19. But the sector has
been in decline for years. From 2005 to
2017, the number of small licensed fam-
ily childcare businesses dropped 52%, ac-
cording to a government- funded report.
Ellen Dressman, the founder of Frog
Hollow Nursery School, a home-based
day care in Berkeley, Calif., has been
in business for more than two decades
and recruited her children to join it too.
But when her state permitted childcare
businesses like theirs to reopen over the
summer, only two families planned to
return—not enough to cover operating
costs. If Dressman, 65, and her daughter
lose the business, which covered their
mortgage, they could lose the home that
the day care operated out of, too. “I didn’t
realize how much the industry really
needs public support until now,” she says.
The calamiTy currently facing the
childcare industry was both predictable
and preventable, some experts say. After
all, private day care is intrinsic to the func-
tioning of the American economy. Par-
ents of small children cannot participate
in the labor force without childcare of
some kind. For millions of American
parents, that choice is stark: either they
pay for private day care or they choose to
stay home, thus giving up their income.
But at the same time, American society
has not rewarded the childcare industry
for the vital role it plays. While Ameri-
cans agreed long ago that children have
a right to a public-school education—
to which even nonparents contribute in
taxes—there is no similar consensus on
sharing the cost of caring for smaller kids.The disparity is clear. While public-
school administrators have also grappled
with new COVID-19- related safety proto-
cols and increased expenses, they are but-
tressed by government funding. Day cares
aren’t—and are therefore left to sink or
swim. Marcy Whitebook, the founding di-
rector of the Center for the Study of Child
Care Employment at the University of
California, Berkeley, says there’s no good
reason why the U.S. does not provide pub-
lic support for childcare in the same way
other industrialized nations do. “Becausewe’re asking parents to foot the bill and
it’s so expensive,” she says, “it means that
the only way to really make that happen
is to essentially exploit the people who
are doing it.”Farrell, From massachuseTTs,
is acutely aware of that dynamic. After
months of exorbitant expenses, she’s
worried about the viability of her smallest
childcare center—and about her retire-
ment plans. Currently 57, she’d planned to
bow out in the next eight years, but now
worries she will have to stick around lon-
ger to pay back the debts she’s accrued.
“Knowing that I owe that EIDL money
back scares the hell out of me,” she says.
She has 30 years to repay the loan, but
can’t fathom working into her late 80s to
do so. “I don’t even know if I am going
to be on this earth in 30 years,” she adds.
Short of the pandemic miraculously
ending and enrollment levels recovering,
there’s a glimmer of hope for childcare-
center directors like Farrell. On the pres-
idential campaign trail, former Demo-
cratic candidates including Senators
Kirsten Gillibrand and Elizabeth Warren
floated tax breaks and universal childcare
plans that would have pumped money
into day-care centers while also reducing
the cost of care for working- class fami-
lies. Democratic presidential nominee
Joe Biden has since taken up that man-
tle, calling for tax credits and subsidies
that would ensure families earning less
than 1½ times the median income in their
state aren’t having to spend more than 7%
of their incomes on childcare.
There’s also been some movement in
Congress. In July, the Democrat-led House
passed a bill appropriating $50 billion to-
ward the Child Care Stabilization Fund
to provide grants to childcare provid-
ers. But that bill is unlikely to pass the
GOP- controlled Senate, and even if it did,
it probably wouldn’t be enough to save
childcare centers that are already under-
water. The Center for Law and Social Pol-
icy estimates the industry would require
nearly $10 billion per month to survive
the pandemic, according to an April re-
port. “It is short-term triage, but it may
be too late,” Whitebook says of the House
bill for emergency funds. “We’re in a fast-
moving vehicle toward destruction of a lot
of people’s lives, livelihoods and health.
And kids are in that vehicle too.” □Society
70%
PERCENTAGE OF CHILDCARE CENTERS THAT
REPORTED “SUBSTANTIAL” NEW OPERATING
COSTS AS A RESULT OF THE PANDEMIC
325K
NUMBER OF CHILDCARE WORKERS WHO
LOST THEIR JOBS FROM FEBRUARY TO JUNE
18%
SHARE OF CHILDCARE CENTERS
THAT ANTICIPATE STAYING AFLOAT
BEYOND JULY 2021 IF ENROLLMENT
RATES STAY DOWN
1 in 4
PROPORTION OF WOMEN WHO ARE
CONTEMPLATING DOWNSHIFTING THEIR
CAREERS OR LEAVING THE WORKFORCE
SOURCES: NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE EDUCATION OF YOUNG
CHILDREN, MCKINSEY & CO./LEAN IN, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR