Childcare

child Bubare sad care, it costs an average of $7,200 a Forgotten Issues child, which the government sub- sidizes by income. "The best chance:afamily has to be guaranteed affordable and high- A Cost Squeeze quality care in this country is to join the military," concluded an analysis by the National Women's Law Center. In Child Care Debra Harris used to drop her kids at Pumpkin Patch Child De- velopment Center :working-class Avenel every morning at 7 in a Families Wonder Where the Aid Is weathered Ford Escort. She popped buttered bagels in the cen- Bv DALE RUSSAKOFF Al The politics of welfare reform ter's microwave for their break- Washington Post Staff Writer has focused national attention and fasts before headingto Jersey City, money on the vast child care needs where she was a school occupation- WOODBRIDGE, N.J.- of women in poverty, which remain al therapist. Debra Harris, a single moth- unmet. And the economic boom is A bus took Whitney, 9, and Fran- letter er, just quit her $34,000-a- helping affluent families pay full- kie, 7, to school andi brought them CAMPAIGN year job as an time nannies or the $800- to back at day's end to Pumpkin occupational $1,000-a-month fees at new, high- Patch, which they complained was therapist for the quality centers. cramped and a bit boring. Their summer be- But with a record 64 percent of mother considered the safest and cause she can't mothers of preschoolers now em- best care she could afford. afford full-time ployed, and day care ranked by the This summer, though, Whitney care for her two children. Census Bureau as the biggest ex- and Frankie's needs would have Kathy Popino, a reception- pense of young families after food grown from before- and after- ist, and her electrician hus- and housing, officials say middle- school care (total: $440 a month) band have gone into debt to income families routinely are to full-day care at Pumpkin Patch's keep their toddler and 8-year- priced out of licensed centers and camp (total: $1,400)a month). Har- old in child care at the YMCA, homes. The median income for ris recently went back over the after a bad experience with a families with two children is math, incredulous att the results. lower-priced home caregiver. $45,500 annually, according to the "I can make $25 an hour on a Mary O'Mara, a computer Census Bureau. per-diem basis," shesaid. "IfI work network administrator, and "Basically, we have a market that 40 hours a week, that's $4,000 a her husband, a factory work- isn't working," said Lynn White, month, $3,200 aftertaxes. IfI take er, have junked the conven- executive director of the National out $1,400 for my mortgage and tional wisdom of "pay your Child Care Association, which rep- $1,400 for full-time day care, that mortgage first." They some- resents 7,000 providers. leaves $400-$100a week to buy times pay a late fee on their In a booming economy in which food and gas, pay bills, go to the almost any job pays better, day care shore on the weekend. This is cra- home loan to cover child care centers now lose a third to more zy!" first, lest they lose coveted than half of their staffs each year, So Harris decidedito quit her job spaces in a center they trust. Child care is in slow-mo- and licensed home caregivers have for the summer, find part-time tion crisis for middle-income quit in droves, according to nation- work and draw down her savings. families, and Middlesex al surveys. At 30, Harris prides herself on The average starting wage for providing for her children "without County, N.J., is in the thick of it. With three of four mothers assistant day care teachers nation- ever using the welfare system, ally rose 1 cent in eight years—to thank God," despite difficulties working outside the home- $6 an hour. Weekly tuition at cen- that include an ex-husband who is near the national average- this swath of suburbs drama- ters in six cities rose 19 percent to more than $6,000 Behind in child tizes the cost to working fami- 83 percent in the same period, as support, according to her records. states tightened regulations. Child care was easier when she lies of the national political Most industrialized countries in- was married, and met just because consensus that child care is a vested heavily in early-childhood of her husband's paycheck, Harris private, not public, responsi- bility. care as women surged into the said. Early in their marriage, they For 30 years, politicians work force in the 1970s, but Con- were stationed in Germany with have promised to shift the gress and a succession of presi- the Air Force and had access to burden for families in the mid- dents left the system here mostly to German-subsidized child care. the marketplace, directly subsidiz- They paid $40 a month per child dle, with little result. Vice Presi- ing only the poorest of the poor. for full-time care ima stately, 19th- dent Gore recently called for tens of billions of dollars in spending A federal child care tax credit, century building within walking enacted in 1976, saves working distance of their home. and tax breaks over a decade to im- families $3 billion, but advocates "I find it really discouraging that prove care from infancy through say it has fallen far behind inflation. my own government says I adolescence-a proposal advo- (It saved Debra Harris $980 last shouldn't need help with child cates called impressive in its reach, year, leaving her cost at more than care," Harris said. "Now is when I but short on resources and details. $7,000.) really need some help." Texas Gov. George W. Bush has When the military faced the The first time Washington tried proposed initiatives only for the same crisis of quality, affordability to help-and failed-was 1971. poor, saying working families can and supply a decade ago, Congress Congress passed a $2 billion pro- apply his proposed income tax cut to child care bills. took a strikingly different ap- gram to help communities develop proach. It financed a multibillion- child care for working families, but Would-be beneficiaries here had dollar reform in the name of retain- President Richard M. Nixon ve- a feeling they'd heard this before. ing top recruits and investing in fu- toed it as ill-conceived, writing in "I was so hopeful when the Clin- ture ones. his veto message that it would tons came in," said Popino, 34. "I The result was a system of tight- "commit the vast moral authority saw Hillary as a working mom's ly enforced, high-quality standards of the National Government to the best friend. I remember she said, It for day care, home care and before- side of communal approaches to takes a village.' Okay, it's been and after-school care. It included child-rearing over the family- eight years. When are they going to centered approach." get to my village?" continual training of workers and Mothers of school-age children more generous pay and benefits. kept going to work anyway. In Advocates hail the system as a 1947, 27 percent were employed at model. With 200,00# children in least part time; in 1960, it was 43 1/2 The Washington Post THURSDAY, JULY 6, 2000