Squeezed: Why Our Families Can't Afford America

by Alissa Quart

Foremost is the shock of how much day care costs. If middle-class parents have become an endangered species, pressed in on every side by harsh work-family policies, the cost of child care is very much to blame: the United States is close to the bottom of the ranks of wealthy nations with respect to our federal child-care expenditures as a percentage of gross national product (GNP). Joya Misra, a professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has analyzed data from thousands of parents from different social classes. One study of middle-class academic parents was based on hundreds of surveys and focus group interviews and seventeen one-on-one interviews. Many survey participants talked about the shock of day-care costs, which can devour 30 percent of one income in a two-salary household, Misra said. In thirty-three states and the District of Columbia, the cost of center-based day care (let alone a nanny) for an infant is higher than the cost of a year at a public college. I’m told that day-care costs for middle-class New Yorkers can easily add up to $25,000 to $30,000 per child. In New York, child care is the single greatest expense among low-income families, surpassing both food and housing costs.