For years, employers and working parents have understood the practical challenges created by a shortage of affordable, accessible child care. New research and polling suggest those challenges are increasingly becoming something else, too: an economic issue with growing political salience.
The numbers help explain why.
A new national poll from the First Five Years Fund finds that more than eight in 10 likely voters — 82% — consider the cost of childcare part of the nation’s broader concerns with the cost of living. More than three-quarters, 76%, say the cost of care for families with young children is either a crisis or a major problem.
For parents who actually pay for childcare, the issue is even more immediate. Asked to identify the two biggest cost pressures they face, 38% named childcare, putting it virtually even with groceries at…
