The Blue View- Making child care more affordable

By Eric Schildge

Originally published August 24, 2021 in Seacoast Online.

The end of summer is right around the corner, and for me and my fellow teachers, that means it’s back to the classroom! This will be another strange and stressful year, and for those of us with young children, it comes with the added stress of hoping that the childcare we rely on to work is available each day.

During the pandemic, the tricky and stressful responsibility of arranging childcare became even harder. Each day that I drove to the daycare to drop off our daughter, I hoped it wouldn’t have to close because of a positive COVID case. At several points throughout the year, one of us had to stop working to provide care because of an unexpected closure or quarantine. Last year, one in five of those who couldn’t work in the United States cited child care as the reason.

The pandemic has made it clear that our economy relies on available and affordable childcare to function. For working parents who had to stay home with young children when a daycare or school closed down for a COVID outbreak, they found that they were working an average of 27 hours more per week!

Of course this burden fell most heavily on working moms, and single moms especially. Without adequate childcare infrastructure, working parents like us were left with 100 percent of the childcare burden while continuing to work full time to pay the rent and keep food on the table. This was unsustainable before the pandemic. Now it’s a full-blown crisis.

Adjusted for inflation, most working parents aren’t making much more than they were in the 1970s. Meanwhile, childcare costs have risen over 900 percent! For example, last year, my wife and I spent about $30,000 just on daycare and healthcare coverage for our daughter. To put it in perspective, by the time Siralina starts kindergarten, we will have paid the equivalent of a four-year degree at UNH for her daycare and healthcare coverage! This spring, we celebrated the birth of our son, which means that we will be spending about $34,000 next year on daycare alone.

Providing high-quality and reliable care for young children costs a lot, and COVID has made it even more expensive. It is tougher than ever to find childcare. That’s why my family supports the efforts made by President Biden and the Democratic majorities in the U.S. House and Senate. Thanks to the American Recovery Plan, we are now receiving $300 for each of our children each month, and if the budget resolution put forth in the Senate passes, we will also have paid family and medical leave, universal pre-K and childcare subsidies as well.

This investment in our country’s care infrastructure would be transformative for millions of families, and if it were matched with investments at the state level, it would improve the lives of every parent and child in New Hampshire and lay the foundation for a generation of strong economic growth. While Governor Sununu and the Republicans in Concord have shown no interest in making these investments, I know that they are possible if we elect a Democratic governor and majorities in the Executive Council and N.H. House and Senate in 2022.

Eric Schildge is a resident of the town of Hampton and a member of the Hampton Democrats.