This report is quite insightful. The report will give you the statistics and numbers, and I can give you a really personal story to accompany it.
I work full time, and have done so for the entirety of my parenthood journey. My children are supported by two parents with income. But the rate at which childcare costs have increased (for understandable reasons), has far surpassed the rate in which salaries/wages have increased. I spend approximately 45% of my pre-tax income just to pay for childcare. And one of my children goes to a public grade school and I only pay for extended day care for that child.
Affordable childcare that is a safe, high quality and trustworthy is impossible for parents to find. And when parents are spending close to, or more than, half of their income to pay someone else to take care of their kids, it becomes a difficult choice of spending so much of our money for childcare or just keeping our kids home because the amount of income we’re making, after paying for childcare, isn’t worth the time away from our kids. And it’s even harder to find childcare for our infants. I was working at a girl-serving and gender responsive organization when I gave birth to my youngest child, during a pandemic, and I only received 8 weeks (the legal minimum amount of time) of *unpaid* time off. I had to pay $1300 a month for just that child to go to a childcare facility for 8 hours a day.
Ensuring that affordable, high quality childcare options are available for children & their parents is an essential part of building our workforce, increasing literacy & graduation rates, and creating equitable outcomes for all children and families in our state. And the issue of affordable childcare disproportionately impacts women, as it’s statistically more likely that the mother of a child will be the one to quit and stay home with her child(ren). Furthermore, it statically impacts women and children of color from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Not having access to affordable quality childcare is a driver of poverty levels.
We don’t just need to create more high quality childcare facilities. We need to create and implement accountability measures for companies and organizations & how they’re supporting their employees who are working parents.
At a time where public funding & resources are being funneled away from Florida’s public schools and into private institutions, it’s even more critical for leaders in our state to consider what infrastructure is needed to ensure we don’t slip even further down the rabbit hole of our untapped potential.
The Florida Chamber of Commerce Foundation recently released an Untapped Potential in FL report that suggests insufficent child care is costing our state $5.38 billion each year. The report brings light to the impact Florida’s child care crisis has on early learning, workforce productivity, and our economy.
Untapped Potential in FL – Florida Chamber of Commerce
https://www.flchamber.com
#BrightHorizons #childcare #employeebenefits