Imagine a childcare system that allows parents to send their babies and toddlers to high-quality care, regardless of their financial resources. Cost is determined on a sliding scale according to income; some families pay as little as $51 a week. Caregivers are paid competitively, given avenues for career development, and are eligible to receive medical and retirement benefits. Families working non-traditional hours have access to 24/7 services. For older kids, there’s care before and after school, and even during vacation and teacher training days.
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This may sound like a dream from some distant Scandinavian childcare utopia, but such a program already exists in the United States. Only for members of the military, though.
This Monday December 14th on KPFA Radio’s “Women’s Magazine” we look at how racial Capitalism and Patriarchy have created a punitive underfunded child care system in the U.S. where the
the average hourly wage of child care workers is $10.72 per hour, many of the women in need of child care are black and brown women and few get any government support in accessing child care. This system
is informed by the history of slavery in the U.S. where women’s job to reproduce the work force is required but never supported. And the reality in our neoliberal economy is that many women especially women of color are the essential workers during covid and are working 2-3 jobs just to survive and yet rarely getting any government support for child care.