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The Childcare Crisis is Just Beginning
The ripple effect will be felt for decades.
When you’re a parent, childcare can seem like an inescapable trap. It is either too expensive, too far away, doesn’t provide the right hours, or isn’t available at all.
Even before the pandemic, the childcare industry was in a paradox, with the cost too high for parents and the pay too low for providers.
This seems weird to me, as the decreasing birth rate should have resulted in a decrease in demand for childcare, leading to an oversupply. Strangely, that never happened.
Unfortunately, the past two years have only driven these intrinsic problems to newer extremes. Childcare centers are closing at an alarming rate, leaving parents to pay exorbitant prices if they can even find any childcare at all.
Where have all the teachers gone?
One might think that the cumulative, individual labor protests that have created the Great Resignation combined with the closing of thousands of daycare centers across the country would increase wages for childcare workers.
But you’d be wrong.
Pay has been embarrassingly low for years, with many workers, “paid so little that they rely on public services for their own economic…
