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The lack of affordable child care is creating significant hardships for many families, new research finds, with 1 in 5 households reporting having to cut back on coverage or resort to less desirable alternatives.
The high price of day care is well known: In dozens of states, the cost of day care is higher than in-state college tuition and fees, according to the advocacy group Zero to Three. Little research has been done, however, to show what families do when they can’t afford to pay for it.
The new survey is part of the Columbia University Center on Poverty and Social Policy’s Poverty Tracker, which has polled the same New York City families for years to glean detailed information about poverty. More than 2,000 households participate in the survey.
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The results, first published Wednesday, show that about 15 percent of the households with children younger than 12 had to stop using a child care arrangement or cut back on child care hours in the past year because they could not afford it. A similar number said they resorted to an “inadequate” child care arrangement because they had no other affordable options.
The research showed that younger parents, those without a college degree and Black and Hispanic parents were more likely to say they experienced at least one form of hardship. Single mothers experienced the most hardship, with 37 percent cutting back on child care, using less desirable child care because of cost or both.
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The findings come as the Trump administration has moved to freeze $10 billion in federal funding for child care in New York and four other Democratic-led states and as New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) is promising more public spending on child care. Federal officials cited allegations of fraud to justify the freeze, but a judge blocked the order.
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“Babies don’t know if they’re in a red state or a blue state,” she said. “But they know that the loving caregiver they’ve developed a relationship with is no longer at the child care center.”