Latest news with #JulieKashen
Yahoo
04-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump wants us to have more kids — but it's more expensive than ever
There are few policies that attract bipartisan support, and the child tax credit is one of them. Since the late 1990s, both Democratic and Republican administrations saw the measure as a way to support middle-income and lower-income families. This year, the discussion is a little different. Along with a potential increase of the credit, the Trump administration is considering a one-time, $5,000 baby bonus and other incentives, according to The New York Times. A 'National Medal of Motherhood' medal would honor those with six kids or more, and quotas for married couples or applicants with children for programs like the Fulbright fellowship are being considered, according to The Times report last month. The issue of boosting fertility rates, rather than just supporting American families, has entered the chat. 'The fact that the [Trump] administration jumped straight to motherhood medals and not something like paid leave or child care solutions shows just how out of touch they are with what parents in America are experiencing right now,' said Julie Kashen, a director for women's economic justice at The Century Foundation. After embarking on an ambitious tariff policy that faces economic headwinds, the Trump administration now will be tested on its commitment to American families. The administration will set the scope and size of the child tax credit, consider additional incentives and suggest how these are structured when it comes to defining the income of eligible families. The administration will have to balance its embrace of pro-family values with widespread concerns about the economy and the growing deficit. "The expectations of a recession have gone up, so I think it winds up being pretty important for the administration to deliver some tangible family policy wins,' said Leah Sargeant, author of a recent report published by Niskanen Center that highlights the potential benefits of a baby bonus. The Trump administration has issued no executive orders on a child tax credit, and Congress is still deliberating the future of the American Rescue Plan Act that includes the credit provision. The child tax credit that temporarily increased benefits and broadened eligibility during the Biden administration expired in 2023. The current credit provides $2,000 per child for eligible individuals making up to $200,000 and up to $400,000 for married couples filing jointly. Without a congressional extension, the credit would revert to $1,000 per child in 2026 if the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provisions expire at the end of this year. Even though the child tax credit has been popular with both parties for decades, some experts suggest it excludes poor families because they don't make enough money to qualify for it. 'It's for American families who are not among the poorest,' said Kathryn Edin, director of Bendheim-Thoman Center for Research on Child and Family Wellbeing at Princeton University. 'In fact, 25% of American children are left out of any or part of the credit because the credit has been so skewed away from the poor — it's remarkable the degree to which it is ignored by the poor." The baby bonus discussion has struck a different tone. "It's a very different logic, this is really about boosting fertility — this is pronatalist,' Edin said. 'It's not about helping families with kids, it's literally paying people to have kids." Trump appears to be open to the pronatalist ideas. 'We will support baby booms and we will support baby bonuses for a new baby boom,' he said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2023, as quoted by The New York Times. Even supporters of the baby bonus say that it's a temporary measure that could help, but will not automatically incentivize more Americans to have kids. 'A $2,000 baby bonus would cost a modest $5.3-$7.7 billion per year, depending on whether it was a universal program or phased in at a 20 percent rate to be fully claimable at $10,000 of earnings,' Niskanen Center's Leah Sargeant argues in the report. "It's clear that families are struggling, that families can't and shouldn't be left out of this reconciliation package, and that there's a pretty broad menu of ways to help from catching up the child tax credit to inflation and instituting a baby bonus that'll work for a lot of American families," Sergeant said in an interview, noting there is an appetite for pro-family legislation. "And I also think just communicating that supporting families is a priority of this administration." Even before the start of Trump's second term, American families had been struggling. And it's not clear his administration would be able to convince Americans to have more kids while the economy is headed for a recession. The proposed baby bonus wouldn't even cover the average cost of delivery for most parents. The average total cost for vaginal births is $14,768 and for cesarean sections is about $26,280, according to UW Health data. An average middle-income family with two children spends about $310,605 to raise a child, according to recent data compiled by the Brookings Institution. Child care costs have also risen. Daycare and preschool costs are up 22% between January 2020 and September 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the U.S., the burden of early childhood care falls on parents, which makes it an outlier compared to other developed economies. This takes a toll on parents' ability to keep working as well as care for their children. 'The labor force participation of parents with young children is weaker in the United States than in many of our peer nations, likely because of our lack of paid parental leave policies as well as the high cost of child care,' according to analysts at the Economic Policy Institute. With the addition of tariffs, there are now early indications that it will become even costlier and more challenging to afford baby products and raise children. While it's still early to determine whether things will get a lot worse for parents, it's clear that Trump will have to balance the shaky economy, fears about the deficit, tangible economic relief for families who are struggling and commitment to pronatalist beliefs. "A lot of American data have indicated that one of the reasons they don't want to grow their family is because they are not sure that economically they will be able to in the coming years,' said Courtney Joslin, who leads R Street's project for women and families. 'When you start from there, that's a different policy conversation than if you're starting with, 'Well, if we give an increased child tax credit, a baby bonus, that will suddenly boost Americans' willingness to have more children.' ' Joslin is doubtful these policies will dramatically boost the fertility rate. None of the broader issues are currently addressed in a systemic way by the Trump administration, according to experts. Ultimately, no amount of incentives will convince people to have kids if they feel financially insecure. 'It's time to move away from the DIY system we have — where it's every family for themselves,' said Julie Kashen. 'Instead, we need robust investments in child care, paid leave, maternal and reproductive care, sick leave and health care for all to strengthen the financial health and well-being of parents in America and make it easier for women to have families on their own terms.'
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
How COVID Shaped Child Care and Early Learning
In March 2020, when states and cities ordered widespread school closures in hopes of curbing the spread of COVID-19, many local leaders urged child care programs — especially family child care providers — to stay open for the nurses, doctors, ambulance drivers, grocers and other essential workers who needed child care in order to work. So began the United States' crash course on the importance of child care to its entire economy. As some child care programs kept their doors open, others struggled to make ends meet. With parents pulling children out of early learning programs because of health concerns, financial constraints and other pressures, many providers suffered tuition losses and low enrollment, while struggling with the rising costs of new safety measures. By March 2021, nearly 16,000 child care programs had shuttered, according to a report from Child Care Aware of America, which was based on data from 37 states. Some experts suggested that the number was closer to 20,000 if all states were accounted for. Much of the early learning workforce had lost their jobs or left the field. Additionally, without care for their children, many mothers left their jobs — a phenomenon some economists refer to as a 'shecession.' The pandemic temporarily devastated the field, but five years later, a number of these effects seem to have rebounded. There are now slightly more child care jobs than before the pandemic, according to the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment. Mothers with young children have entered or returned to the workforce in record numbers. What has endured is a sense among the public and lawmakers that affordable, accessible child care is essential to a healthy economy. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter But experts say that such good-on-paper developments can cloud a more nuanced story. To better understand the ways in which COVID-19 radically altered child care and early learning in the U.S., I interviewed five experts about what they consider key to the legacy of the pandemic on the field. Here's what they shared, edited and organized for length and clarity. Julie Kashen is a longtime child care advocate and the director of women's economic justice at The Century Foundation, where she conducts research on families, caregiving, economic mobility and women's labor participation. The pandemic shone a spotlight on a challenge that many of us knew had been there all along. For so long, people had bought into [a] false argument that child care and early learning are an individual problem for each family to solve on their own. Seeing the impact of school and child care closings on parents and the workforce around the whole country, and at the same time [changed that]. CEOs and employers were finally understanding the [child care] challenges parents face. There was increased media attention on the issue because it was so prevalent, and also more reporters had firsthand experience with it. So as members of Congress got ready to put money into the airline industry, the restaurant industry and the retail industry — sectors that Congress has long been comfortable bailing out — we were able to make the case that child care is a sector that's impacted, and that also impacts all those other sectors, and therefore needs investment. It quickly became clear that this was not being treated as a partisan issue. Leaders on both sides began stepping up to say, 'child care needs to be part of our pandemic relief package,' and that led to significant investments. Now more elected officials are eager to be child care champions. They understand that they need to have a position and perspective on child care, that leading on child care is a popular thing to do. Mary Cheng is the director of childhood development services at the Chinese-American Planning Council, which has several early childhood centers and after school programs serving low-income families in New York City. Providers feel exhausted by everything that's been happening. I feel like they haven't had a full break since COVID hit. There has been a definite drop in enrollment in our programs due to the pandemic, but [we now serve] a higher number of [children with] special needs. In our classrooms, like 50% [of the children] need services such as early intervention or speech and occupational therapy. I think parents were scared to bring them out for services [during the pandemic]. But it also has to do with the way that kids were being occupied at home. If parents were working remotely, they weren't paying attention to children the same way. They were giving them screens to keep them quiet. Today, a lot of the children want that instant gratification. We're seeing a lot more children with a limited attention span. We're also finding it harder to get parents to the table to work with us. When people are cornered and feel like they have no choices, and no connection, [the way they did during the pandemic], they close up. A lot of families are still not willing to gather together the same way as before, so there isn't that same family support or peer system that they need. A lot of families don't feel like there are systems in place to really support them. They want us to do it all. Chris Herbst is a professor at Arizona State University focused on the economics of child care and early childhood education. Prior to COVID-19 not a lot of child care research was focused on the workforce. Now, a lot is very much focused on the workforce. Pretty much every [recent] paper I've written has focused in some way on the workforce, documenting its skill level change, or how public policies — whether it's the minimum wage or immigration enforcement — have affected it. The child care workforce is a bit like a leaf blowing in the wind. It's very sensitive to all kinds of changes in the policy and economic environment because it is inextricably linked to the larger labor market. When there are shocks to the larger labor market — like if lots of new parents are entering or leaving the labor market — that has obvious implications for the child care sector. The shocking piece of news coming out of the pandemic that keeps me coming back to the workforce is how hard it has been for child care providers to hire and keep teachers, never mind highly qualified teachers. In the wake of the pandemic, the pay in the low wage labor market really started to increase, but child care providers couldn't keep up, so it made hiring and retaining highly qualified staff even more difficult, and you continue to hear that to this very day. Erica Phillips is the executive director of the National Association for Family Child Care, a non-profit dedicated to promoting high quality child care by strengthening the profession of family child care. Before the pandemic, many home-based providers felt invisible and not supported. The pandemic gave a window into how important they are. Family child care providers were lauded as heroes for staying open when many child care centers closed, and a lot of parents were interested in their small size. Some advocates leveraged that spotlight to talk about the systemic changes needed to support home-based child care. [When COVID funding became available to stabilize the child care sector,] a lot of family child care programs entered the public funding system for the first time. More began engaging with their state child care registries to access technical assistance or grants. In several states, family child care providers unionized and were able to collectively bargain, resulting in increased pay or access to retirement plans or health insurance. We continue to see a significant hunger and momentum for ensuring that our sector is respected and supported. But as COVID funding has dried up, many family child care providers are beginning to feel forgotten. There are states that have invested in their early education systems who have been inclusive of family child care. And then there are states where the providers feel like they are trying to shut down family child care. The sentiment we hear from family child care is, 'We are essential for a lifetime, not just for a pandemic.' Steven Barnett is founder and senior co-director of Rutgers University's National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER), which publishes an annual report tracking preschool policies, funding and enrollment in the U.S. During the pandemic, kids weren't in classrooms so studies in classrooms were completely disrupted. A lot of data collection was also delayed. On the flip side, we started a survey of a representative sample of 1,000 families of 3-5 year olds on their preschool learning activities, including home learning activities. We wanted to see the impacts of this moment on kids' learning activities, because a bunch of them were not going to preschool, they were getting this remote stuff — and who knows how well that was working. We started in the spring of the pandemic and we've been doing it every year since. Our data show that parents read less to their kids during the pandemic. It was like, 'I've had that kid all day while I'm working at home, and we're both too beat to do this.' Eventually, the reading bounced back up, but it never came back to where it was. Even in the spring of 2020, before people had really been wrung out by the pandemic, the reading levels were still a lot higher than they are now. We [also] found that children's social emotional development tanked during the pandemic. [Some] behavior problems and mental health issues seem to have receded, but the prosocial — how well do you get along with other kids part — hasn't come back to where it was before. There's way more screen time than anyone recommends for young children, and the converse of that is there's way less outdoor time. That's a problem. If kids are outdoors less, and on screens more, then wouldn't we think they would have fewer experiences playing with other kids? These aren't things we had been monitoring nationally, and we know they have consequences for kids' learning and development. We plan to continue this work.
