Universal Child Care Should Be at the Top of the Progressive Agenda

I’ve stated this before, but the late 60s and 70s are full of things that almost became law, did not, and then were just dropped from the progressive agenda. Among the better known of these things was the universal child care bill that Nixon vetoed because Phyllis Schlafly and Pat Buchanan told him that it would be the end of the American family. Over a half-century later and this has still not returned to the forefront of the liberal agenda. We need yet another reminder of just what serious child care reform would mean for families, and especially for women at work.

“In a research note about Friday’s jobs report, the chief economist at consulting firm RSM US did something surprising: Instead of talking about rate hikes or soft landings, he made the case for universal child care.

Why it matters: Child care for kids under the age of 5 is increasingly an issue for more mainstream economists who are concerned about the prospect of long-term labor shortages in the U.S.

• The idea is that a good, affordable child care system — the U.S. has an unaffordable patchwork — would incentivize more mothers of young children to come off the sidelines and into the workforce.
• “Universal child care is the most realistic way to help expand the labor force at a time when the economy needs workers the most,” writes RSM’s Joe Brusuelas in a research note titled “Where are we going to find the workers?”

Zoom in: The U.S. needs more workers, and there are more women sitting on the sidelines of the labor market than men.

• Right now, close to 86% of working-age men are employed compared with 75% of women. That’s a record for women, but it’s also far below the rates for men — there’s room to grow
• Substantial child care investments, like those proposed in the now defunct Build Back Better bill, could increase mothers’ employment by 7 percentage points, with bigger jumps for low-income families, according to estimates in an NBER paper published last year.”

I hate the bullet point articles like this on a stylistic standpoint, but the overall point remains unquestioned. We must place universal child care at the forefront of the progressive agenda.