September 16 is National Working Parents Day, a day when society is supposed to recognize the challenges working parents face at home and at work. As the end of September draws near, so does yet another challenge for working parents, especially mothers.
On September 30, tens of thousands of daycare centers nationwide are at risk of closing, due to the expiration of federal funding. When those emergency childcare grants expire, that covered cost of childcare could be passed on to families. Up to 70,000 childcare programs could close due to lost funding, causing 3.2 million children to lose care, according to a study by the Century Foundation.
As a solution, and when left with no other option, working mothers tend to be the caregiver who opt out of the workforce. This time, that decision will only stop one of the financial challenges in their family.
Last year, American families faced the most significant annual increase in the cost-of-living adjustment in over four decades. The price of food, real estate, healthcare, transportation, and caregiving continue to increase. Even for households with two incomes, wages in America today aren’t keeping up with the higher cost of living. This past Tuesday, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that while the number of full-time, year-round workers increased from 2021 to 2022, the median earnings of those workers decreased.
In a recent study of stay-at-home motherhood conducted by Mother Untitled, having to rely on their partner for income was the #1 worry for stay-at-home mothers (56%), above not having enough money for leisure activities and not having enough money for emergencies. These would be typical concerns for any household relying on just one income, but these concerns are more likely to become a reality when exacerbated by inflation. Economic data proves inflation leaves less for discretionary spending, reduces a family’s purchasing power, diminishes their quality of living, and doesn’t leave much money to cover emergency costs, like hospital bills or home repairs.
When the federal funding expires and mothers resign, we could see another exodus of women in the workforce similar to September 2020’s ‘shecession’ as early as October of this year. Mother Untitled found in their survey that it took 41% of stay-at-home mothers between one and three months to leave a job. Worse, the broken rung for women will remain cracked, as 54% of mothers who decide to stay home after establishing their careers had been in the workforce for over ten years. In an ideal situation (and with federal and employer support), these women could have progressed in their careers, becoming directors, vice presidents, and leaders in the C-Suite.
Keeping working parents and the expiration of federal childcare funding in mind, in the short term, employers with the ability to offer remote or flexible work after September should consider doing so. In the long term, The Best Place for Working Parents has developed a National Child Care Toolkit, which provides insights for employers interested in offering childcare benefits but are unsure of where to start. The Child Care Stabilization Act would also provide $16 billion in mandatory yearly funding for the next five years to continue the Child Care Stabilization Grant Program. The investment would ensure childcare providers continue to receive a stable and reliable funding source to help them deliver high-quality child care for working families.
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