Working Families
Access to affordable, reliable, and high-quality early learning and child care opportunities provides working families with better job stability and overall economic security.
Here are five things to know about child care and working families.
- Child care prices are untenable across all program types, age groups, and geographic locations. In 2021, the cost of infant care ranged from 24.6% to 75.1% of income for single-parent households.
- Child care helps parents return to or stay at work, which can generate an additional $94,000 in lifetime earnings for mothers.
- Almost half of parents are absent from work at least once every six months due to child care issues.
- 74% of mothers and 66% of fathers have left work early, arrived late, or been absent because child care fell through at the last minute.
- In a recent poll, 59% of part-time or non-working parents say they would go back to work full-time if their child had access to quality child care at a reasonable cost.
Learn more:
Posts
Mothers of Young Children Have Been Pushed Out of the Workforce During Pandemic
A recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis found that the lives of working moms in particular have been disrupted, as many left the workforce entirely due to, …
Letter Urges Congress to Strengthen Child & Dependent Care Tax Credit
Last week, a group of the nation’s leading child care and child advocacy organizations, including the First Five Years Fund, penned a letter to Congressional leaders urging support for the …
New Pew Study Highlights Child Care Struggles for Working Parents
Working parents have faced a year like no other. The Pew Research Center recently released new data from a survey of working parents that reflects that many working parents have …
FFYF’s Blueprint for Progress
Across the political spectrum, voters and policymakers recognize the importance of investing in policy solutions that support healthy development in children, beginning at birth, while allowing working parents to pursue …
OPRE Report Looks at How to Conceptualize and Measure Access to Care
In a new report, the Office of Research, Planning, and Evaluation (OPRE), in collaboration with Child Trends, examines how the early learning field has attempted to measure access to child …
New Report from U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation on the Impact of COVID-19 on Working Parents
It’s no secret that many parents are reaching the end of their ropes as the Coronavirus pandemic drags on. For many, it has permanently impacted their career paths and the …
Women’s Workforce Participation Is At Its Lowest Point Since The 80s. Child Care Is An Essential Part Of The Solution.
The September jobs report makes clear what economists have been fearing throughout the COVID-19 pandemic—this economic crisis is disproportionately affecting working women, and stands to set progress on women’s workplace …
Child Trends Brief Advises States on Using A Family-Centered Framework to Guide COVID-19 Response
In a new brief, Child Trends discusses how Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) state administrators, policymakers, and researchers can apply the Access Framework to guide policy and funding decisions …
FFYF Releases State Fact Sheets, Highlighting Unique Local Landscapes
This summer, FFYF released updated state fact sheets, which draw on numerous data sources to offer details about the early childhood opportunities in each state made possible through federal and state …
On Grandparents Day, Let’s Celebrate And Support Grandparents As Caregivers
This weekend, families across the U.S. will celebrate Grandparents Day. As we take the time to recognize the grandparents in our lives, we should also consider the important role that …
Survey Highlights Growing Child Care Concerns for Parents as Pandemic Continues
A new national survey of parents of children under age five from the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) and Morning Consult reaffirms the importance of child care for our economic recovery …
America’s Child Care Crisis Sees Major Uptick in Media Coverage
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated financial challenges that child care providers have faced for years, pushing the industry to the brink of collapse. Anxious parents and struggling child care providers …
