The lack of affordable and
accessible child care
is holding women back from
reentering the job market.
In fact, 64,000 women left the job
market in April of this year alone.
Now compared to other nations in
world, the childcare system in
the United States is really awful.
It's far behind.
When you look at other developed
nations we fall behind on education
we fall behind on health care.
We lend to the free though right?
Work yourself to the bone and
you get very little in return.
Now, in the United States, federal,
state and local governments spend
about $1,000 a year on care for
low-income children ages two and
under.
And $200 on other toddlers, for
children under three,
only the poorest working families
qualify for subsidies, but fewer
than one in six receive the help.
By the way,
Bill Clinton's welfare reform had
quite a lot to do with that.
Now the only government support for
early care comes from the Child and
Dependent Care tax credit.
It benefits higher earners most
the average credit is $586 and
$124 for the lowest earners.
Wow whoa let's not get crazy like
that credit.
And when you look at the cost of
child care,
you'll understand how ridiculous
that social safety net really is.
Now you go to other developed
nations and they're killing it.
They're killing it because they
have better priorities than we
have here in this country that's
dominated by corporate interests.
Rich countries contribute
an average of $14,000 per year for
a toddler's care.
Wealthy countries in
the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and
Development spend an average
of 0.7% of G.D.P on child care.
In Europe, new parents have paid
leaves of 14 months.
Okay, let's stop for a second.
It's not that parents can take 14
months off and not get fired.
It's that parents can take 14
months off, and
they get paid during that time off.
So they can raise their kids.
So they can take care of an infant.
They can recover women can recover
after giving birth.
They can be there for
the child in the early
stages of that child's life.
These are things that are already
being done and
they're working in other countries.
And by the way, we actually have
a history during FDR administration
of providing universal health care.
So we know that we can do it and
it can work, but of course we have
corporate interests that don't
want to pay their fair share of
taxes, that would essentially fund
federally subsidized childcare for
Americans.
But lemme give you more details
since American families get so
little support from our federal
government for child care.
Their high cost associated,
the burden is on them to use their
household income on child care.
The Treasury Department reported
last month for instance,
that the average cost of care is
roughly $10,000 a year per child.
And consumes about 13% of family
income, nearly twice what the
government considers affordable.
In fact, the average family with
two children,
spends on average 22% of their
household income on child care.
So when you put it on context,
right, when you look at the fact
that wages have remained stagnant
in the United States since
the 1970s.
And then you look at the high
cost of childcare in America,
can you understand why women have
decided maybe it doesn't make sense
for me to go to work.
Maybe I should stay home instead.
And that does create a precarious
awful situation for
families because they need income.
And it's impossible to
live in a single income household.
But what's the point of going to
work if 100% of your paycheck is
going to go to a child care and
at the same time, by the way.
Workers in these child care centers
are quitting because they're
underpaid and overworked.
And they're not appreciated.
They make less money than public
school teachers make.
Now the reconciliation bill is
supposed to help provide a solution
to that.
I'll get to those details
in a second.
But let's take a good hard look at
where the United States really
stands for where it ranks in terms
of the happiest countries in
the world for 2021.
The very top of that list is
Finland, which by the way,
has banned privatized education and
had great results.
They're also incredibly supportive
of families, ensuring that families
can have children and
they won't find themselves in
economic ruin as a result of that.
Then you've got Denmark,
Switzerland, Iceland, Netherlands,
Norway, Sweden.
Wow, would you look at that top
seven happiest countries
in the world in the United States
isn't in it, I wonder why.
And the US spends less for
childcare than any other developed
country.
Let's take a look at this
fun chart.
United States at the very end but
Norway, Iceland, Finland, Denmark,
Germany, Sweden.
We live in the richest country in
the world.
We have the resources to do it.
And as I mentioned earlier, we did
do this once during World War Two
when men had to go fight the war,
women filled their jobs as factory
workers, across a broad array of
jobs.
They were taking those jobs and
the government realized, hey,
what, we have a responsibility to
provide child care as these mothers
are working.
And so while we hear the business
community whine constantly about
the labor shortage.
Maybe they should consider
supporting the budget
reconciliation bill, which offers
universal pre K, which offers
federally subsidized child care.
Ensuring that Americans can easily
go to work without worrying about
the cost of child care.
It's amazing how much that bill
would positively impact the overall
economy and how the business
community still fights against it.
Because they're so short sighted
that the only thing that matters
the only priority is tax cuts.
But how are you going to make money
if your workers can't show up to
work because they don't know what
to do with their kids?
You can't have your cake and
eat it too.
Society is collapsing because
of the sheer greed.
And what's really unfortunate about
it is that these short sighted
awful people are being empowered,
enabled by corporate Democrats in
the Senate people like
Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema.
So I'm not really interested
in hearing Sinema cry about being
hounded by activists who just want
some answers about
why she turned their backs or
turned our backs on them.
I don't really care about that.
It's about time that these
lawmakers actually listened to
the best interests of their
own constituents,
instead of running away from them.
To go back to their state for
fundraisers, as we're dealing with
multiple crises simultaneously
during a pandemic.