Hey Congress, Tell us where we can find child care for $3,000 a year?
Posted June 2nd, 2009 by Donna NortonI know that tax season is over, but I’m still riled up. Every time I get to that section of my taxes where they ask you to report your child care expenses to a maximum (maximum!) of $3,000 for one child, my blood boils.
Where the heck are you going to find full-time quality child care for just $3000 per year!?
The truth is that in most communities, the cost of child care breaks the family budget. In New York, for example, the average annual price of care in a center for two young children is more than single parents earn on average in a year.1 Now how is that supposed to add up for families?
We need real relief. Happily, the Family Tax Relief Act of 2009 has been introduced into Congress to make child care more affordable.
Urge your Senators to co-sponsor this important legislation:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1768/t/1546/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27267
About the Family Tax Relief Act of 2009: The Family Tax Relief Act of 2009 (S. 997) sponsored by Senators Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), would improve the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit for millions of families by more than doubling the maximum credit families can claim for child care expenses and making it fully refundable so that low and moderate income working families will also benefit.2
Now, more than ever, families need our support. The Family Tax Relief Act of 2009 would make a real difference in the lives of millions of families.
Please forward this message on to friends, families, moms, and dads at your workplace and in your community. We need everyone’s voice to pass this important legislation.
Don’t forget to send a letter to your Senators now asking them to co-sponsor this critical legislation:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1768/t/1546/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27267
Thank you for your support of America’s families.
Donna, Sarah, Kristin and the MomsRising Team
[1] NACCRRA, Parents and the High Price of Child Care, p. 15. http://issuu.com/naccrra/docs/parents-and-the-high-price-of-child-care-2008?mode=embed&layout=white
[2] For more information on the this legislation see, http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/FamilyTaxReliefAct2009.pdf and http://www.liveunited.org/PublicPolicy/FTRA2009.cfm
P.S. Thank you to our friends at First Focus, the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies, the National Women’s Law Center, and United Way of America for their work on this issue.
12 Comments
June 8, 2009 at 9:06 am by hopeMakes my blood boil as well. I am doing daycare granddaughters because there is no place that is reasonable around here.
$3,000.00 a year are they insane for full time day care.
For one child here in Michigan its $232.oo per week for one child who is a year old. That’s the most reasonable I found.Highend was over $300.00 per week. And I checked out the women working there were downright mean to the children there.
So whats the choice for young parents. Grandparents or sub standard care for these children? Even excellent care your going to pay through the nose for it.
I have people asking me all the time what I charge but I m not will to give sub standard care to any child. I want to give them what they need.
Should the government help . Maybe in Tax exemptions. But Make so those who do daycare as well can at least earn point for social security if that”s the case.Make it easier to get licenses to do the day care. As well as helping those who do to provide for these kids. It should not come totally outta my pocket. Childcare of any kind specially with Babies and Toddlers is tough work. Under the age five there is no doubt in my mind that doing this job is well worth it . But the appreciation value has dropped in this country for those of us who care for our children.
It has to work both ways, both sectors parents and daycare works have to benefit. There is a Nanny tax out there. But nothing available for those caring for children in your family or those who it in there homes. Its insane all of it.
This child care crisis. I don’t see states coming across to provide state tax exemptions for child care facilities and workers. Its to easy of a fix.
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June 6, 2009 at 7:09 pm by Bonni PetilloThis is an interesting topic. On one side we have those that feel as though taxes are already giving us quite enough (it is surprising that some of your readers would not like a tax deduction – the article didn’t suggest a refund) and those like you that feel the government should help those less fortunate while helping those that can afford much more expensive and exclusive daycare situations.
Can it be had both ways?
Possibly it already is. Those who earn more than poverty level wages are allowed a $1000 deduction per child as part of the Child Tax Credit. There is currently a bill in committee in the House looking to make this important credit indexed for inflation.
What price a child? Cold calculations can range from $170,000 on up to $350,000 per child. Should families look at these numbers decide not have children or should they treat them otherwise, as worthwhile expenses? While they are always as priceless as precious, they do have a cost attached.
Where the government should step in is to help providers lower their costs and improve their economic situation. Current government regulation put the cost of reimbursable meals at $1.92 (for breakfast, lunch and two snacks).
Often these providers are taking care of your children as the costs of care are rising and to fix that they must pass the cost of operating a safe environment for your child on to you. Insurance costs are among the most difficult to pass on and among the most difficult to avoid. Providers, the good ones at least, must be licensed (which may come with some improvements to what would normally be considered a safe-enough house) trained (on their own time after spending all day with your children) and certified (through inspections). All of these could be subsidized by the government relieving the economic pressures of the high cost of running a nurturing environment during these all important formative years.
Providing tax relief at the provider level would have a greater net effect on better care than offering similar tax deductions for parents who still must pay upfront.
This kind of tax break would have a twofold effect: the provider would be more willing to offer better care and you would pay less.
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June 5, 2009 at 10:02 am by Meggie SuzelAs a parent in a family struggling during this economic downturn, every little bit helps. That said I will do my part to put voice to the need for this legislation. As a worker who is part of a state wide early learning quality improvement system, I can tell you the importance of high quality early care and learning opportunities for our country. Did you know that for every dollar that is invested in the early education field that the local economy gets back more than double that? So you want to support economic growth support early learning! And $9-10 an hour for child care/early learning opportunities barely allows facilities to pay a living wage to these critically important teachers or maintain high quality programming.
There is no difference in using NY child care rates as an example than it is in rural mid-west. Everything is relative. Everything costs more in NY, but salaries for similar positions are also higher. So the percentage of total income going out of a family budget for child care in NY is going to be comparable to that in just about any other part of the country.
I don’t feel that the government should pay for all of a family’s child care expenses. Let’s face it though, I’m sure there are other tax write offs that you get everything you paid out back which are not nearly as important to the growth and development of the youngest citizens of our country as quality early learning experiences are. Many single income families are able to provide these experiences without early learning facilities but let’s face it not all are capable. They lack either the financial ability to offer experiences or the know how to do it right.
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June 5, 2009 at 9:47 am by Sheree ReeceI understand that childcare is expensive but I agree with Dank. It’s not the governments responsibility to pay for everyone for everything. They are already throwing money away like crazy which is YOUR and MY tax dollars. Where does it end? Who should get the money? In the end, you and I pay anyway. There’s no such thing as “government money” – it’s TAXPAYER money.
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June 4, 2009 at 7:28 am by DankI can understand your concern- but is it the government’s(my!) responsibility to help pay for your child care? It should be a family decision as to whether the mom/dad stays at home or the kid is in childcare. It’s not cheap having kids(I know)- but the government is better staying out of personal family decisions. The government is broke- where does this spending end?
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June 3, 2009 at 8:22 pm by sariI live in central MA (an hour outside Boston) and we pay just under $2,000 a month for child care for our 8 month old. This is like a mortgage payment.
The cost itself does not concern me (10 hour days =$9.18/hr). I earned $5/hr as a babysitter 20 years ago so I figure the pay rate is appropriate.
What is wrong is how salary growth has not kept up with cost of living so the earning power of families is erdoing FAST!
I am in favor of any little bit that helps!! I am scheduling a call to my senators each week in my calendar.
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June 3, 2009 at 1:58 pm by Working DadGreat blo, I’ll be covering it on Thrive by Five’s early learning blog, http://birthtothrive.thrivebyfivewa.org, today. Any idea about the bill’s prospects?
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June 3, 2009 at 1:55 pm by ErikaI live in Wisconsin, and you can’t find full-time child care for $3000. In fact, good luck finding it for under 10K. So yes, NYC is an outlier, but not,actually, by much.
Does the bill cover after-school care, too?
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June 3, 2009 at 5:01 am by LauraThat problem seems to be the same everywhere.
I am mother in Europe.
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June 2, 2009 at 11:23 pm by Chris JohnsonMy heart goes out for families who need daycare services for their children so that parents can earn a living. But to use the example of New York is misleading as the cost of a daycare facility in the State of New York is significantly higher than the majority of the states in the US, due to New York Property and income taxes.
What is needed is for states to individually understand the child care crises that exists in their state and nationally, and to provide state tax exemptions for child care facility and workers so that families can earn a good wage at lower child care costs. This will ultimately increase tax revenues to states while suppporting the state workforce with lower child care costs.
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