Impact on Working Families

Child Care Helps Families Work

As parents struggle to balance work and family obligations, employers are losing out. Even when parents are able to stay employed, child-care breakdowns take a toll on attendance and thus business productivity and customer service.

And right now, child care is expensive and hard to find, and it is forcing parents and caregivers – especially mothers – to cut back on work or leave the workforce.

• One in three U.S. families across the country reports difficulty finding child care.
• Even when child care is available, many parents find that child care expenses consume most of their paycheck. In PA, infant care costs an average of $11,800 per year – eight percent more than the average rent.
• Low-income families spend more than one-third of their income on child care.
• 45% of Pennsylvania’s working families with children have had to adjust their work to accommodate their family’s need for child care during the pandemic.
• Mothers disproportionately take on unpaid caregiving responsibilities when their family cannot find or afford child care. Millions of women who had to leave the workforce during the pandemic have yet to return in large part because of childcare needs.