We’ve been asking listeners about what issues would make a difference in their lives.
For CAI listener Katherine Derderian-Kent, it’s affordable childcare. She says working families in our region are struggling to find and pay for quality childcare, and more needs to be done to support it.
"I walk through life with a tremendous amount of privilege and so does my family," said Derderian-Kent, who has a three-year-old daughter with her wife in Mansfield. "We have to think about how we are making sure the folks who need the most have the most access to quality, consistent childcare."
News Director Steve Junker and Morning Edition host Patrick Flanary discussed the issue.
Steve Junker: When it comes to the question of affordable childcare, there are really two sides to the problem: There are parents who need childcare, which is scarce and expensive. And there are the childcare givers, the people who staff daycare centers, who we need more of and who need to be paid a living wage.
Patrick Flanary: Right. On the question of staffing and pay, I spoke to Kathy Blackwell of the Common Start Coalition in West Barnstable. She told me recruits in the early-education pipeline — the people who would take care of children at daycare centers — often end up dropping out of the program once they find out what the salary is.
"Everybody is just hanging on by their fingernails, or they're not," Blackwell said. "They've quit, or they’ve had to leave or go into a different field. I've heard early educators say, 'I had to leave the childcare center where I was working to work at Dunkin' Donuts, because you make more money there.'"
Steve: What’s the policy piece to this on the state level? What role does Governor Healey’s administration have here?
Patrick: The Department of Early Education and Care says it’s pushing to strengthen that career pipeline for educators, with better recruitment and more competitive pay. Blackwell said proposed legislation called Common Start would also award more operating grants to childcare providers.
"Instead of just asking for money every year — or to fill gaps, to fill holes, to fill needs — this will be a framework, a streamlined system, to have money coming in," Blackwell said. "And we won’t have to be juggling so much."
Steve: For parents struggling to figure out childcare, the big challenge here is that there simply aren’t enough spots. Which means sometimes taking whatever you can find.
Patrick: Right. I talked to another parent who was putting some serious miles on her car just for daycare. Amanda McGonigle owns a marketing firm. She’s a mother of two living in Falmouth. For years, she was driving to and from Plymouth every day for daycare — going off-Cape and back in the morning, and doing it all over again in the afternoon. This started when her daughter was eight weeks old.
"In the summer it was a roundtrip of three-and-a-half hours, so productivity was kind of nightmarish," McGonigle said. "And there were some days, like on Fridays, where the traffic would be too much, and I would keep her home in an effort to try to get more work done."
Patrick: Her daughter is now a first-grader. But it wasn’t until last month that Amanda finally got her two-year-old son into daycare closer to home. It was a parenting factor she never considered when planning a family.
"Add to the list of things you have to worry about while you’re pregnant is getting on a waitlist seven months before your kid is even born," McGonigle said. "As soon as you find out you’re pregnant you need to get on a waitlist for daycare."
Patrick: Common Start estimates more than 16,000 children are on a waitlist for childcare subsidies. At the same time, the nonprofit Monomoy Community Services agency is providing childcare vouchers to qualifying families in Chatham to keep them here on the Cape.
Steve: Which points out there’s a social cost to a lack of childcare, too, right? It must be a contributing factor to the exodus of so many working families who couldn’t afford to live in the region any longer?
Patrick: Right, and everyone loses here. The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation says the state loses more than $2 billion a year because of inadequate access to childcare. That accounts for lost earnings, lower productivity, lower revenue — and it all trickles down from what Governor Healey has called a crisis point. It’s bad for business when parents forgo work to stay at home.
Steve: So let's bring it back to Governor Healey. Affordable childcare is one of many issues the Governor pushed for during her campaign. What has she done so far since taking office, and what more can she do?
Patrick: She was on board with Senator Elizabeth Warren’s federal proposal to make childcare 10 dollars a day for half of families across the country. In Massachusetts, that would mean a family with two kids making $130,000 a year would pay no more than $10 a day. Right now in this state, the average cost of childcare is more than $3,000 a month.
At the state level, Healey has earmarked half a billion dollars toward affordable childcare in her budget, which is sitting with lawmakers right now. And more locally, State Senator Susan Moran has co-sponsored Common Start legislation. It would expand affordable access to families.
Childcare advocates will be watching to see if Governor Healey follows through on one of her signature campaign promises.
