The cost of child care in the United States would make any parent’s eyes dazzle. A 2020 report found that the national average annual cost of child care was $10,174 per child. This is more than 10% more than the median income of married couples with two incomes and more than 35% more than the median income of single parents. Half of Americans pay more than that — sometimes even more.
With childcare costs so high (and wages so low for many), some families are stuck in a complete cycle: living paycheck to paycheck, working two or three jobs, and counting down the days until the kids can go to public school.
As the 2024 presidential election approaches, vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance has been making appearances on the campaign trail and talking about policy.
At an Operation Turning Point event in Mesa, Arizona, conservative talking head (and questionable) Charlie Kirk asked Vance how to reduce the cost of child care. Vance’s answer was completely tactless and showed zero understanding of today’s parenting environment.
JD Vance thinks the high cost of day care can be solved with a simple solution: Just ask your family for help!
“For people who spend so much on day care, one of the ways you can take a little bit of the pressure off is maybe grandma and grandpa want to help out more. Or maybe there’s an aunt or uncle who wants to help out a little bit more,” Vance said.
“If that happens, you take the pressure off all the resources we spend on day care.”
For parents who don’t have relatives willing to care for their children for free, more people must receive child care training, and some certifications “have nothing to do with caring for children,” Vance said.
He suggested (completely without any factual basis) that child care professionals are forced to have “six-year college degrees” and therefore have to charge higher day care fees.
First, free help for families is not a policy solution that anyone can write into law. Is this a joke? What if grandparents live five states away? What if they get sick? What if they die? What if they still work full time because no one can retire?
Second, in what world does one think that child care certification requires an advanced college degree?
While there are degree requirements in Washington, D.C., they are limited to two-year associate degrees. In Illinois, aspiring preschool teachers need at least a bachelor’s degree. This false statement that preschool teachers need a “six-year degree” is just another dangerous and untrue statement from a guy who has a completely wrong or completely outdated view of what’s actually going on in this country.
For that matter, a person who doesn’t trust teachers Not at all Do your classroom work seriously and recommend that kindergartens only hire Landos who “love children”? What’s going on here?
Also, if we really want to dig deeper, JD Vance probably doesn’t care at all about child care costs. When it came to a bill to expand the child tax credit for 16 million low-income families, he didn’t even vote. that’s right. He didn’t even bother to go to work to vote on key legislation that would expand the child tax credit to help Americans with children make ends meet.
In fact, he called universal day care a “class war against ordinary people.” oops!
Vance seemed to have a pattern that was completely out of character.
In a 2021 audio clip, the Ohio senator held childless teachers accountable, noting that childless teachers made him “upset” and “disoriented.” In 2020, the Ohio senator agreed with a podcast host that having grandmothers help raise children is “the whole purpose of postmenopausal women.” He was also heavily criticized for insulting “cat ladies who don’t have children”.
