The vast majority of U.S. voters across party lines are concerned about soaring child care costs and support majorly expanding child care access, new polling finds, demonstrating the need for lawmakers to address the growing child care crisis across the country.
According to polling released Thursday by Data for Progress, 83 percent of voters are either “very,” “somewhat” or “a little” concerned about child care costs, including 87 percent of Democrats and 84 percent of Republicans, as well as 90 percent of parents polled.
An overwhelming majority of the poll’s 1,247 respondents also expressed support for a bill introduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) earlier this year aimed at massively expanding access to child care. The bill would create a nationwide network of child care and early learning centers to ensure universal access, while also capping child care costs at $10 a day for half of the country and capping costs at 7 percent of income for higher income families.
The proposal, which was briefly described to respondents, has 79 percent support, according to the polling, with 42 percent saying that they “strongly” support the bill. This includes nearly 90 percent of Democrats, 77 percent of independents and 70 percent of Republicans. Eighty-seven percent of parents also said they support the proposal.
Child care costs have been skyrocketing in the U.S. for years now. During the pandemic, the average cost of child care rose even higher; last year, a LendingTree report found that child care costs climbed by 41 percent on average for child care centers during the pandemic, with families spending about $14,000 annually, up from about $10,000 a year pre-COVID.
For families with children younger than five years old, this was an average of between 17 and 20 percent of average yearly wages. This is far higher than the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s definition of child care affordability, which is 7 percent of family income.
For years, child care costs have risen faster than inflation, while workers’ wages have remained stagnant for decades or have, in some recent years, been cut in real dollars. These costs hit lower income families the hardest; even though some low-income families can access assistance, families must meet strict standards in order to qualify, and what assistance does exist has not been sufficient to help families and children, with millions of children living in poverty in the U.S.
Experts say that the child care industry is broken, and with little energy to fix the problem in Congress, the crisis will only continue to get worse.
High costs are due in part to a child care shortage across the country, with thousands of providers shutting down during the pandemic, low public funding for child care and an increasingly underpaid and overworked workforce; according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual wage for child care workers is $13.71 an hour, or an annual wage of about $28,500. This is lower than the national living wage for an individual without children, and is less than half of the living wage for a single parent, according to data from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Help us Prepare for Trump’s Day One
Trump is busy getting ready for Day One of his presidency – but so is Truthout.
Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.
Organizations like Truthout are also being threatened by legislation like HR 9495, the “nonprofit killer bill” that would allow the Treasury Secretary to declare any nonprofit a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip its tax-exempt status without due process. Progressive media like Truthout that has courageously focused on reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza are in the bill’s crosshairs.
As journalists, we have a responsibility to look at hard realities and communicate them to you. We hope that you, like us, can use this information to prepare for what’s to come.
And if you feel uncertain about what to do in the face of a second Trump administration, we invite you to be an indispensable part of Truthout’s preparations.
In addition to covering the widespread onslaught of draconian policy, we’re shoring up our resources for what might come next for progressive media: bad-faith lawsuits from far-right ghouls, legislation that seeks to strip us of our ability to receive tax-deductible donations, and further throttling of our reach on social media platforms owned by Trump’s sycophants.
We’re preparing right now for Trump’s Day One: building a brave coalition of movement media; reaching out to the activists, academics, and thinkers we trust to shine a light on the inner workings of authoritarianism; and planning to use journalism as a tool to equip movements to protect the people, lands, and principles most vulnerable to Trump’s destruction.
We urgently need your help to prepare. As you know, our December fundraiser is our most important of the year and will determine the scale of work we’ll be able to do in 2025. We’ve set two goals: to raise $81,000 in one-time donations and to add 1250 new monthly donors by midnight on December 31.
Today, we’re asking all of our readers to start a monthly donation or make a one-time donation – as a commitment to stand with us on day one of Trump’s presidency, and every day after that, as we produce journalism that combats authoritarianism, censorship, injustice, and misinformation. You’re an essential part of our future – please join the movement by making a tax-deductible donation today.
If you have the means to make a substantial gift, please dig deep during this critical time!
With gratitude and resolve,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy