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Gloria Rivera
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Gloria Rivera
Hey everyone. First off, we want to thank you for listening to no One Is Coming to Save Us and now we want to hear from you we what you've learned, what's sticking with you, what questions you still have, and what you're motivated to do as a result of listening. Right now you can take our short survey to help us better understand the impact of our work. And even better, once you've completed the survey, you can enter for a chance to win a $100 Visa gift card. The survey is short and sweet, I promise and it will really help us keep bringing you content you love. Take the survey at bit ly noonesurvey that's bit ly no onesurvey thanks again lemonada I live in Washington D.C. and it's known as being a great city if you need childcare and early education for your kids. I was told that pre K for my three turning four year old daughter would be no problem. I didn't need to worry. Something like 97% of families who entered the public school lottery would get a spot. Well, we didn't. A spot was not available for my girl so we had to scramble. Eventually we did find a place for her. The tuition was several thousand more than we had budgeted for, but we had to make it work and thankfully we could. Childcare in our country is missing two crucial qualities, availability and affordability. The majority of us live in a childcare desert where there is only one available spot for every three children who need it and it can feel like we are losing childcare providers by the minute. Childcare is simply not affordable anywhere in any part of our country. The cost of childcare has risen over 25% since pre pandemic days. 25% enrollment costs on average more than $15,000 per year. Childcare in America is crushing us. So we asked you, our listeners, to tell us what you're fac. For many it's the cost. It's simply too expensive and families are forced to make trade offs that are really hard. I had my second kid in late 2022 and I realized that it was going to cost $27,000 to have two kids under the age of three in care. I was only making 34 and so my husband and I made the decision for me to leave the workforce. For some it's the stress of balancing work and childcare. We had to pay for after school care because I could not pick him up at the standard let for school. Also couldn't attend any school events and had to take PTO to take him to any doctor's appointments, anything of that nature. So was it doable?
Jeff Liebman
Yes.
Gloria Rivera
Was it hard?
Jeff Liebman
Yes.
Gloria Rivera
For those on public assistance for child care, it's making all kinds of sacrifices to make sure you don't lose that benefit. The requirements to be on that is very stringent income requirements. You can't even live with the father of your child. Honestly, it's kind of crazy. So for the past few years I've been kind of taking a pay cut so that I can get her into a quality school at an affordable rate without really breaking our household. One mom from Minnesota called in and recounted the horror she faced looking for childcare when she was newly pregnant.
Unknown Mom
I called some daycares when I was about two months pregnant, just finding out and wanted to get a sense of how much things would cost. Much to my horror, when I called the daycares, they all told me that there was a two year waiting list and that they would put my name on it, but that there was no way I was getting in when I needed it, which was when my child was four months and I had to go back to work.
Gloria Rivera
She was in shock.
Unknown Mom
I couldn't believe this that, you know, I asked them, I said, what did I need to call you before I got pregnant? And their response was basically, yeah, people do tell us when they're trying to get pregnant. I sat there in utter just disbelief like, how would I get childcare? How would I go back to work? How would I afford to live? How, how would I do anything if I didn't have childcare?
Gloria Rivera
The ironic thing was she actually thought by making these calls she was ahead of the game. She was wrong.
Unknown Mom
Here I was calling just trying to budget and be responsible and I already felt behind, like I didn't have a place for my child. It was the worst feeling. And I would love to live in a world where that didn't happen to anyone.
Gloria Rivera
What's crazy is that a two year wait list isn't even uncommon. Childcare in America is scarce, expensive, and often out of reach. And especially these days, when everything's crumbling around us and under attack, families struggle to secure a spot, navigate options, and afford care if they can find that spot at all. But you know what? It doesn't have to be this way. I'm Gloria Rivera, and this is no One Is Coming to Save Us. A show about the childcare crisis in America. This season, we're talking about what the childcare system needs to look like. A system that we demand for to have. This week, we're zooming in on the demand that our child care system be accessible. No more wait lists. No more childcare deserts, no more trade offs.
Jeff Liebman
Many children in America cannot find a place to get high quality child care. And given how important early education is to life prospects, the fact that we don't have a way to provide every child with a good start in life, you know, that's the crisis to me.
Gloria Rivera
That's economist and public policy expert Jeff Liebman. This episode, he's helping us break down the root causes of the child care crisis and how to get ourselves out of it.
Jeff Liebman
There is really no reason we need to sit around and wait for someone else to solve this problem. We're going to solve this problem.
Gloria Rivera
Jeff charts a path, step by step, to a better system. A system that works for all families, not just the lucky few. I don't know what to call you. Do I call you Professor Liebman? Is that right?
Jeff Liebman
You can call me Jeff, you can call me professor, whatever you prefer.
Gloria Rivera
Jeff Liebman is a professor of public policy at Harvard University. And by all accounts, he should not be researching childcare.
Jeff Liebman
When you look at the research agendas of economics professors, they follow the life course. You know, people at some point write about early education and then a little later, they write about retirement savings with.
Gloria Rivera
Kids in their 20s. Jeff should be closer to the retirement side of the spectrum. But when a friend approached him with a problem, he couldn't resist. It wasn't just any friend. It was Amy Kershaw, the Massachusetts Commissioner of Early Education and Care. Jeff and amy actually met 22 years ago when, as luck would have it, both their kids were enrolled at the same childcare center.
Jeff Liebman
Commissioner Kershaw posed a question to me. How could the state ensure that the incremental steps it is taking to make high quality childcare more affordable and more accessible, how could the state ensure that these incremental steps are building toward whatever the ultimate vision is for a system that truly makes high quality early education available to every child?
Gloria Rivera
Instead of punting the question to another economist or faculty member, Jeff took the challenge on himself because the issues at hand sounded very familiar.
Jeff Liebman
This problem looked just like a problem I'd worked on before. So I was one of the initial economic advisors to the first Obama presidential campaign, and there were five of us that put together the campaign version of what eventually became the Affordable Care Act. And if you look at the problem in early education, so many of the features look like the problem in, in health care. For example, if you look at the price of early education, high quality care, it's going to be at least 20,000, could easily be 25,000. If you're making $50,000 a year, there's just no way you can pay for that. The same thing with health care. You know, a good family health insurance plan costs actually a pretty similar amount to that 20 to $25,000. And if you're low income, without a government subsidy, you're not going to be able to pay for it. And so the same kind of solution we need in the healthcare system carries over.
Gloria Rivera
And like healthcare, when it comes to childcare, the government needs to intervene. In fact, Jeff thinks there's no way this works unless the government gets involved. Because in a for profit system, the market just isn't going to correct itself.
Jeff Liebman
It's clear that the market is not going to do that. And we're going to need a large government role if we're going to provide high quality childcare to every child.
Gloria Rivera
There's simply no way that someone making 40 or $50,000 a year can budget 20 or 25,000 of that paycheck for childcare.
Jeff Liebman
The same reason why we don't make people pay for K12 education themselves. Lots of people wouldn't be able to afford what it would cost. So that's the first reason. The second reason is economists have a fancy word for this, which is liquidity constraints. What it means is the inability to borrow against your future earnings. So imagine you're a toddler, you're two years old and you realize that if you get higher quality childcare right now you're going to earn a lot more. And so you crawl your way over to the bank and you say, give me a loan because I'll pay you back out of my higher future earnings. Well, obviously that's ridiculous. That's not going to happen. But economically it should happen. There should be a way to have someone be able to borrow against those future earnings. But that market basically doesn't work. And even if you look at the parents rather than the toddler, him or herself, often the parents are early in their careers. The 55 year old selves would be happy to have spent more money earlier to give their child better childcare, but they didn't have the money at that moment and so they sort of paid for whatever the most was that they could afford. But in a system like that, you're going to have too little childcare provided by the market and the childcare that's being provided is going to be too low quality because even people who can afford it will be affording basic care rather than the high quality care that is what is associated with all the benefits.
Gloria Rivera
But while Jeff thinks the government should play an active role in childcare just like they did with health care, he's not holding his breath.
Jeff Liebman
I don't want to sit around and wait for Washington D.C. to solve this problem. You know, in the health care context, Governor Romney in Massachusetts basically did the equivalent of the Affordable Care act just within the state. And then eventually that became a model that spread nationwide in this field. The same thing should happen. States should take the lead here and we need three or four states to go out and do this. They'll suddenly realize that they are now delivering higher quality care than anywhere else in the country and that they're getting all the labor market benefits of parents having good childcare. And I predict that Washington will then follow. There's no reason we need to sit around and wait for someone else to solve this problem. We're going to solve this problem.
Gloria Rivera
In other words, no one is coming to save us. Especially when we're swimming in uncertainty about what our country stands for and prioritizes, when things that we thought were given are shifting by the day, by the minute. But no matter what's happening on the political stage, what we can all agree on is that we want our kids to have a good education. We want them to be able to read and write, to express themselves, to become confident and critical thinkers. And that begins with a child care system for all to make child care accessible as in affordable and in sufficient supply. There are certain steps we need to take, but Jeff says these steps have to be taken in a specific order. That's coming up after the break.
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Gloria Rivera
When Jeff started researching early childhood education, he came across an interesting data that really stuck with him.
Jeff Liebman
We spend about $20,000 per child in America for each student enrolled in K12 public school. Government spending per child on early education is something like $3,000. And given that we know how important those early years are, it's just hard to understand why we would spend a fraction per child in the early years that we would once they get to kindergarten.
Gloria Rivera
It makes no sense to Jeff and it makes no sense to me. But you get what you pay for and that bare minimum government spending just isn't cutting it, according to Jeff, to make high quality childcare affordable and available, we need to do a few things. One, increase wages to early childhood educators. Two, generate additional slots, and three, give people a way to pay for childcare. But, and this is a big but, Jeff says there's no need to even talk about increasing childcare accessibility if the child care itself isn't high quality.
Jeff Liebman
We got to get the quality part right before we just go add more slots, because there's a risk that we actually could do harm if we add slots before we take care of the quality aspects of this.
Gloria Rivera
That's right. Bad care actually hurts our kids. Meaning if you put a kid in low quality childcare, their outcomes are even worse than if you just left them at home. And we've learned this the hard way. There have been some places around the world that have gone for expanding availability without focusing on quality, like Quebec in 1997.
Jeff Liebman
There's been research on that that's actually shown adverse effects for children. There's some interesting research out of Quebec where they did a tremendous job in making a slot available for almost all families. But when scholars studied those, they found that the children had increased hyperactivity, anxiety and aggression. They had worse health, higher crime rates later in life.
Gloria Rivera
So it's not good enough to just provide access to childcare. You have to provide access to high quality child care. Longtime listeners might remember that we covered childcare in Quebec in season one in full transparency. I've often quoted that their data showed more women returning to the workforce, which meant increased tax revenue. But I certainly didn't dig deep on the quality of the care provided. As it turns out, as Jeff says, Quebec did a tremendous job creating slots and a questionable job, at minimum. On the quality aspect, which is key, focusing on quality first means increasing educator wages.
Jeff Liebman
If you want there to be more childcare available, you can't get there without paying higher wages to providers because there are a lot of centers where the license capacity is above the enrolled capacity and they are keeping classrooms shut because they can't recruit staff. And so if you want more workers in this field, you got to pay them more. And if you want the quality, that I believe has to be the first step, you also have to pay more because as you've discussed in many of your earlier episodes, there was incredibly high turnover rates. And you can't have quality early education if the providers are not making careers out of this and investing in their own skills. And so that's going to require us to get somewhere in the direction of parity. With kindergarten teachers, basically, if we're going to have the kind of quality that will deliver the kind of results that we're hoping for from early education.
Gloria Rivera
I know. I was so relieved to read that you believe that wage increases for staff and continued support in the workplace are the starting points to get to where we need to be. When we started doing this show, it drove me crazy because we will educate you. You can have lots of letters behind your name from very good universities. And then you talk to these people who are early educators, and they're amazing people, and they have to get out of the industry because they can't afford to be in it. So it's very affirming to speak to you because, yes, wage increases, that is where we need to start.
Jeff Liebman
And it's just worth emphasizing, like, head teachers in these preschool classrooms are getting paid $19 an hour, you know, $38,000 a year, and we're somehow expecting them to make a career out of us. I mean, we're just not even. It's just not even close to being a labor market that can support quality in this field.
Gloria Rivera
Now that we know that we need to pay teachers more, and that is our first step towards fixing this crisis. What is the most effective way for the government to get involved in the market to help build quality supply?
Jeff Liebman
So what we've seen in a couple, actually now, three jurisdictions that I'm aware of in Washington, D.C. and in a pilot basis in Illinois, they have all tried an approach that I think is very promising, which is basically the government decides to raise wages and to pay for that increase. And so the government will say something like, we'll pay for $6 an hour worth of the wages of early educators. Okay. And you have to combine that with a floor on the wage so that the employers don't just pocket the $6 an hour and make more profits. So let's say the current wage, just to make it simple, is $20 an hour. So what has to happen is the government comes in and says, we'll pay $6 an hour. But now you have to pay $26 an hour if you want the $6 an hour so that you can't just say, we'll pay $6 an hour, and you reduce what you're paying to 14.
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Jeff Liebman
So that system has now been piloted in Washington, D.C. in Illinois, and in all over Canada in various forms. Each province has a slightly different scheme, and it seems to be working. And I think that's probably the most direct and cost effective way to raise quality in the system. It's not the only thing. There's things you have to do on the training side and the credentialing side as well. But that seems like the most efficient way to, to get to quality fast.
Gloria Rivera
Okay, so we know, we know the only way we're going to get to quality is to pay providers enough so that we can get people to enter this field. And here's the important part. Stay in it. Child care workers have some of the highest turnover rates, in part due to low wages. You just cannot have quality care unless people are incentivized and able to make careers out of this. So now that we've talked about quality.
Jeff Liebman
And wages, then you add more slots. And then after you add more slots, then you give the people the ability to pay for those slots.
Gloria Rivera
That's next. After this short break.
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Jeff Liebman
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Gloria Rivera
Hasan Minhaj doesn't know to ask them.
Jeff Liebman
The tough questions that real journalists are way too afraid to ask.
Gloria Rivera
People like Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Jeff Liebman
Is America too dumb for democracy? Outrageous. Parenting expert Dr. Becky, how do you skip consequences without raising a psychopath?
Gloria Rivera
That's a good question. Listen to Hasan Minhaj doesn't know from Lemonada Media.
Jeff Liebman
Wherever you get your podcasts.
Gloria Rivera
We'Re back. So to recap, when we talk about accessibility, what we mean is that everyone can find and afford to pay for high quality childcare. But we're not talking about starting a new system. We're talking about taking existing schools full of brilliant people who are great at what they do, and restructuring the system to make it work. Childcare is going to be there whether or not we prioritize it. So why not make it great? We've talked about how the first step to making the system accessible is raising wages. Now let's get to the supply part. How many more seats or slots do we need before it becomes readily available and easy to find? Jeff's research focused on Massachusetts, which has about 50% of below school age kids in formal care, like a child care center, a licensed family child care provider, or a school based preschool.
Jeff Liebman
The question is, how far above 50% should we be targeting? Is 60% enough? 70%? And if you sort of ask, why has this country not solved this problem already? Part of the reason, I think, is a perception that people want such different things. There's not a one size fits all solution. And some people may want their grandparents to take care of their kids, some people may want a nanny, some may want a neighbor, some may want formal care. Someone obviously stay home with their child. And how can we solve this problem in a simple way given this mix of providers and preferences? So one of the first things I wanted to know was, well, what do people want and where should we be headed? And I read everything I could and I couldn't find an answer to this question. So I finally gave up and said, all right, I'm going to have to go collect data on this. And so I raised some money and commissioned A survey of 1,000 mothers in Massachusetts who have children below school age.
Gloria Rivera
In the survey, Jeff asked them what kind of childcare they're using now and what kind of childcare they would use if child care were free, if money wasn't an issue.
Jeff Liebman
And I was surprised. I thought there was going to be more heterogeneity in what people wanted. But in fact, 90% of people want to be in formal care.
Gloria Rivera
Of that, more than half want to be using a child care center, another 20% want a school based program, and another 20% want their kid with a licensed family child care provider.
Jeff Liebman
So 90% want to be in formal care. And what was interesting, when I asked the people who are not using any paid child care, would you use paid child care if it were free? 80% said yes. So the people who are not using it at all, it's not a preference thing, it's a they can't afford it thing. And when I asked people who were currently using paid child care, would they use more if it were free, 71% said yes. When I asked them how many hours additional hours they would use, the ones who weren't using it at all said that the Median answer was they wanted 25 hours a week, and the mean was 29 hours a week. And the ones who are already using it, who are already using about 25 hours a week on average, wanted another 10 hours. This paints a picture of almost everyone wanting a lot of formal child care. And it makes me think, as a policy matter, there's no risk we're going to overshoot. We can go as fast as we could afford to produce more quality slots, and we will be able to fill them. And we don't have to worry that we're going to suddenly provide too much childcare. We don't have to spend a second worrying about that problem.
Gloria Rivera
Jeff's research makes it so abundantly clear. The vast majority of families want their kids in some kind of formal child care setting in this early stage of life. For families who don't currently use formal care, 80% said they would if it were free. And for families who do use formal care, 70% said they'd use more if it were free. You just can't argue with these numbers and what they demand more childcare at affordable rates. And why do we need it? Because it gives parents more time to work. That's a huge part of why Jeff remembers what the struggle was like.
Jeff Liebman
You know, it is hard to have a career when you have instability in childcare. And certainly in my own life, there were a lot of times where we thought we had great childcare. And then the phone rings and all of a sudden, oops, there's a. What my wife and I called a child care catastrophe. Either it's a very minor one, which is simply your child just vomited and has a fever, and now you don't have any childcare for the next few days because they gotta stay home till their fever goes away. Or a major catastrophe like the time when we had childcare at my wife's employer on site, and then the employer decided to build a parking garage and not have child care anymore. And suddenly we went from having child to care to being back in the market again.
Gloria Rivera
Wow.
Jeff Liebman
So, you know, you're always one phone call away from, even when you do have good childcare. From having what feels like, to a parent, like a, you know, a complete crisis, especially if you have to go to work the next day.
Gloria Rivera
It doesn't just feel like that. It is like that. It's so fragile. Right. Whatever we're able to sew together can go haywire with one phone call. It feels like a house of cards. Families don't just want accessible childcare. It's not just a preference, they need it.
Jeff Liebman
Every child deserves a great start in life. And that's true whether they were fortunate enough to be born into a family where they can easily afford, you know, the gold plated childcare, or if they're born into a family that, you know, just paying for food and housing is a struggle and they can't afford even a dollar worth of childcare, that child still deserves to have a really excellent early education experience.
Gloria Rivera
We've talked in this discussion about the government paying to raise wages because that's one of the first steps towards fixing this crisis. How did you make the numbers work for affordable care? And is that model the same one that we need to apply or how is it slightly different for early education and care for 0 to 5?
Jeff Liebman
I guess there are two parts to that question, like how much is it going to cost?
Gloria Rivera
Yes.
Jeff Liebman
And then the secondly is where is one going to come up with the revenue to pay for it? On the cost side, it's certainly expensive because if you think of all the children who are 0 to 18, if you think about the four and a half years where we want to provide childcare, assume that for the first six months, maybe someone doesn't need formal childcare, they're going to be taken care of at home. And at some point, either at six months or a year, it's going to be time to start some kind of paid child care. That means we're going to be paying for about four, four and a half years of child care. And that's on top of the 13 years that we're paying for K to 12 now. And so if you just do the math, you'll convince yourself that that's about a 1/3 increase in the time that we're paying for. But it's not going to cause a 1/3 increase in our education budget because first of all, we're already paying for some of it so that the increment is not as big. And we're not going to get to 90% of kids enrolled anytime soon. We're going to be at 60 or 70. And so when I did the numbers for Massachusetts, it looked to me like to get to a system that I would consider really excellent in terms of quality and accessibility. It was going to cost something like $1.5 billion more in the state budget, which is, it's on the order of like a 3% increase in the state budget. You know, that's the amount we do annually for inflation. So it's a big number, but it's not like an impossible number. And put another way, it's about 10% of the state education budget. So it'd be a 10% increase in the overall education budget to get from where we are to a system that we would just recognize is by far the best in the country in terms of quality and accessibility. So that's the magnitude. It's a big number, but it's not a number that's so big that we should give up, I guess, is the way I think about it. And then the question is, how do you pay for it? And that's really a political question. And so I'm always very hesitant to lead with the ways to pay for it. But, you know, obviously state taxes tend to be some combination of sales taxes, income taxes, property taxes, and then there are things where we free up resources that could be rededicated. So there's a lot of creative things you can do on the revenue side, but every state's going to solve that differently. And that's really more of what's the politically feasible way to get the resources. And it's not so large in Canada. I asked the question, like, three times because I couldn't believe their answer. I said, when you did this big increase in this national commitment to childcare, how did you pay for it? And they're like, well, we just put it in the budget. And I'm like, no, no, no. But didn't you have some new revenue source to pay for it? And they're like, no, we had space. You know, the economy was growing. Well, we had some revenue. We prioritized it. And so it may be that there is some place where the state economy grows by 6% this year and they decide they want to spend 2% of that on having the best childcare system in America. I mean, that, you know, it's in the level where that could be a decision that someone makes at some point.
Gloria Rivera
Right. It reminds me of what happened in New Mexico. Right. They found money that they had and they made early education a priority. That's why it is now on its way in the state of New Mexico. I will say that I am very grateful that there are people far with talents far different from mine in this field that I will rely on to figure this out. And for anyone listening to this episode, who's going to go out and demand accessibility, demand a better system, is it right to point to the government and demand that our tax dollars pay for this? Is that the argument people should be making?
Jeff Liebman
Absolutely. I think there is really no reason we need to sit around and wait for someone else to solve this problem. We're gonna solve this problem.
Gloria Rivera
We are. We need to figure out, state by state, how much high quality, accessible care will cost, and then show me the money, because it's there if we make it a priority. Too many of us are mired in a collective, painful despair when we hear over and over, it's really hard to pay for. Jeff says the numbers are big but not impossible. Not impossible. Implausible, maybe because we've lived in this crisis for decades. But change is not impossible. The good news is that we know what good care looks like. We know how radically it can take the tiniest babies and set them on a path to superstardom. And I'm going to go out on a limb and decorate. Claire we need superstars going forward, now more than ever. There's more no One Is Coming to Save Us With Lemonada Premium subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content like unheard clips from our interviews. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts. No One Is Coming to Save Us As a Lemonada original, this is this series is created and produced with Neighborhood Villages, a nonprofit dedicated to transforming child care through innovative program building and policy design. Visit www.NeighborhoodVillages.org to learn more. I'm your host, Gloria Rivera. Lisa Fu and Hannah Boomershine are our producers. Ivan Koraev is our audio engineer. Our music is by Hannis Brown. Jackie Danziger is our VP of Partnerships and Production. Executive Producers are Stephanie Whittles Wax and Jessica Cordova Kramer, along with me, Gloria Rivera. If you like this show and you believe what we're doing is important, please help others find us by leaving us a rating and writing a review. And most importantly, tell your friends. Follow no One Is Coming to Save Us. Wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership. Thank you for listening and we'll be back next week. Until then, hang in there. You can do this.
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Podcast: No One is Coming to Save Us
Host: Gloria Rivera
Release Date: May 15, 2025
Produced by: Lemonada Media in collaboration with Neighborhood Villages
In the episode titled "Make Child Care Accessible," Gloria Rivera delves deep into America's ongoing childcare crisis. The discussion highlights the challenges families face in securing affordable and quality childcare, the systemic issues contributing to the shortage, and potential solutions to create a more accessible and equitable childcare system.
Gloria begins by sharing her personal experience living in Washington D.C., a city reputed for its robust childcare options. Contrary to expectations, she encountered significant hurdles when her daughter was unable to secure a spot in the public school lottery. This unexpected setback led to scrambling for alternative childcare solutions at a considerably higher cost than initially budgeted.
“I was only making $34 and so my husband and I made the decision for me to leave the workforce.”
— Gloria Rivera [03:50]
Listeners also contribute their distressing experiences. A Minnesota mother recounts facing two-year waiting lists despite proactively seeking childcare during her pregnancy, leaving her anxious about her ability to return to work.
“I couldn't believe this... how would I get childcare? How would I go back to work?”
— Unknown Mom [05:31]
These narratives underscore the dual issues of availability and affordability in the childcare sector, revealing that many live in "childcare deserts" with limited options and skyrocketing costs.
Gloria introduces Jeff Liebman, a Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, as the episode's expert. Liebman draws parallels between the childcare crisis and the healthcare system, emphasizing that, similar to healthcare, government intervention is crucial for addressing the shortcomings of the market-driven approach.
“We’re not going to have high-quality childcare available to every child without a large government role.”
— Jeff Liebman [10:25]
Liebman argues that without government involvement, the market will fail to provide both the necessary quantity and quality of childcare. He suggests that states should take the lead, similar to how Massachusetts implemented its version of the Affordable Care Act at the state level.
“We're going to solve this problem.”
— Jeff Liebman [07:37]
A critical point made by Liebman is the importance of prioritizing quality over mere availability. He warns against expanding childcare slots without ensuring high standards, citing Quebec's experience where increased availability without quality led to adverse outcomes for children.
“Bad care actually hurts our kids.”
— Jeff Liebman [17:13]
To improve quality, Liebman emphasizes the need to increase wages for early childhood educators. Higher pay would attract and retain skilled professionals, thereby reducing high turnover rates and ensuring consistent, quality care.
“Head teachers... are getting paid $19 an hour... just not even close to being a labor market that can support quality in this field.”
— Jeff Liebman [20:17]
Liebman commissioned a survey of 1,000 mothers in Massachusetts to understand childcare preferences. The results were telling:
“Almost everyone wanting a lot of formal child care... no risk we're going to overshoot.”
— Jeff Liebman [26:55]
These statistics highlight a universal demand for accessible and affordable formal childcare, dispelling concerns about overprovision.
Implementing an accessible childcare system is costly but manageable. For instance, in Massachusetts, achieving a high-quality and accessible system would require an estimated $1.5 billion increase in the state budget, roughly a 3% rise to account for inflation and dedicated resources.
“It's a big number, but it's not so big that we should give up.”
— Jeff Liebman [30:46]
Liebman discusses potential avenues for funding such initiatives, including reallocating existing resources, introducing new taxes, or leveraging economic growth to prioritize childcare in the state budget.
“Creative things you can do on the revenue side... solve it differently for each state.”
— Jeff Liebman [31:35]
The foundational step is to ensure that educators are adequately compensated, making childcare a viable and attractive career path.
Once quality is secured through better wages, expanding the number of available childcare slots becomes feasible to meet the high demand.
Finally, providing financial support to families enables them to afford these quality childcare options without economic strain.
“Child care workers have some of the highest turnover rates, in part due to low wages.”
— Gloria Rivera [20:36]
Gloria and Liebman conclude with an optimistic outlook, emphasizing that with the right policies and prioritization, the childcare crisis can be addressed. They advocate for collective action, urging listeners to demand government intervention and support for a robust childcare system that benefits all families.
“We're gonna solve this problem.”
— Jeff Liebman [34:27]
The episode serves as both a wake-up call and a beacon of hope, outlining practical steps and reinforcing the belief that systemic change is achievable through concerted efforts.
For more information on transforming childcare through innovative program-building and policy design, visit Neighborhood Villages.
This summary encapsulates the key discussions and insights from the episode "Make Child Care Accessible" of the podcast No One is Coming to Save Us. It is structured to provide a comprehensive overview for those who haven't listened to the episode.