Child-ish ideas

Plan for pandemic funds will make big impact

The last thing anyone ever wants a child to be considered is as a burden. Children themselves, while they can be a handful from time to time, inspire wonderful emotions and connections beyond any a parent could have experienced before they took on the titles of mom or dad.

But let’s be honest: Raising kids is at times challenging, if for no other reason than caring for them costs a lot of money. From an emotional standpoint, children add abundantly to the plus side of the ledger. Financially speaking, caring for a family isn’t for the faint of heart.

In Arkansas, 53% of those working are parents and 37% of those have young children, according to an evaluation of the state’s census data released last fall by the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank. When it comes to child care, the impact of access is an economic development issue as much as it is a social one. That’s because in most married households with children, both parents work. Child care is a necessity for their participation in the workforce, and the same is certainly true for single parents.

Access to child care is especially important for Black mothers. Of Black mothers with young children, 74% are single parents, compared to 34% of Latina mothers and 24% of white mothers with young children, according to the Federal Reserve evaluation.

High child care costs challenge families with young children, with an average cost per child of $6,100 every year. That’s equal to about 12% of median household income, and other organizations say the actual costs of child care for working parents exceeds what the Federal Reserve Bank says. The Federal Reserve doesn’t mention it, but many families around these parts have their financial lives complicated, too, by the high cost of housing in Northwest Arkansas, draining even more of any wiggle room they may have in their budgets.

For many families, the costs of child care can be the difference between financial stability and living on the financial cliff.

“In the manufacturing sector, we see a high employee turnover rate,” said Garrett Dolan, a Tyson Foods manager who participated last September in a roundtable discussion brought together by the Federal Reserve Bank. “One of the leading reasons is the lack of affordable child care. It is especially difficult for single-income families and females.

Tyson Foods, by the way, in 2022 announced plans to open a child care center this year near its Springdale headquarters, with space for 200 infants and preschoolers of Tyson employees.

Employees who have reliable and affordable child care are more likely to show up for work, are happier and more likely to stay with a company, he noted. Given the post-pandemic labor shortage, addressing access to, and the capacity to afford, child care is an important issue for businesses to take seriously.

Late last year, the Arkansas Commission on the Status of Women, created by Gov. Asa Hutchinson, examined barriers to women entering the workforce. The commission confirmed what everyone really already knew: Women bear the greatest burden of family care (which includes elder care as well as caring for children).

The commission called on Arkansas businesses to address the child care challenges their employees — or potential employees — face.

“Lack of child care is a barrier to success in the workforce for women of working age, and the quality of early learning services and care for the next generation of workers is fundamental to the long-term economic prosperity of our state,” the commission’s report stated.

In that report, the commission said the annual price of child care in America has increased more than 220% in the past three decades, considerably faster than other essential family expenses — with significant annual increases in more recent years.

Good news for low- to moderate-income parents in Fayetteville arises from a unanimous City Council decision this week to bolster a child care assistance program the city created late last year with $500,000 in federal pandemic relief funding. Demand, so far for about 90 children, has already exceeded that amount by an estimated $340,000. Mayor Lioneld Jordan proposed adding another $1 million from the city’s American Rescue Plan funds to the child care assistance program, which cover child care costs for up to a year. On a motion by council member Holly Hertzberg, the City Council increased Jordan’s request by another $500,000.

“It could make a huge difference in somebody’s life,” said Yolanda Fields, the city’s community resources director.

Indeed, it could. Imagine the relief it could have on families under financial strain. Imagine what it could be like to gain some breathing room. The American Rescue Plan funding was largely designed to assist people impacted by the economic impacts of the pandemic. Without a doubt, this kind of program does exactly that.

Will it be a miracle cure for these families? No, but it will help tremendously, and one never knows what the long-term benefits of even a year’s worth of assistance will be.

While we wouldn’t suggest child care subsidies as an ongoing use of municipal funding, using the American Rescue Plan funding for such a purpose makes sense to help people potentially get their financial lives back on track.

Meanwhile, businesses need to continue their examination of their own policies affecting families and their abilities to make ends meet. Being pro-business ought to mean being pro-family. And you can’t get much more pro-family than making sure employees can meet the needs of their children while also establishing a strong foundation for their future. That’s what early child care and education can do.