Question

Read “Big New Obstacle for Economic Recovery – Child Care Crisis” on Sakai and answer the following questions:

1. How has lack of child care/school for kids K-12 and younger affected economic recovery? How is child care connected to what businesses can open and who can work (men versus women, people with children versus people with no children, high income versus low income, for example)?

2. The reason why some schools have not opened (or only opened a few days a week, or in a hybrid manner) is that the United States (and a lot of the world) is still in the midst of the coronavirus. Last week, almost 80 percent of the states had rising cases. Locally, a couple of schools had to quarantine many students because of positive cases and SUNY Cortland just went online only for 2 weeks because they had more than 100 positives in a two-week period. How do you balance economic concerns and health concerns during a pandemic?

Answer 1

Lack of child care and school for kids has severely affected economic recovery as some form of workforce has not been able to function effectively, because of no system in place to take care of the child when parents are out working. This has led to small businesses not being able to open and function effectively as parents have to stay home and watch over their kids. Leading to firms not being able to operate at full capacity.

Child care is related to businesses not being to open because parents and especially women have to take care of their children as children are home and there is no one to take care of them. High income earners can work led by them employing people to take care of their children or them working from home, but low income earners often work in the frontline and have to be present in that location in order to work. Thus small businesses who rely on low income earners can't function as parents don't have any other means to take care of their children, even as private child care costs are exorbitantly above their income level.

One will have to balance economic concerns with health concerns during a pandemic by extending the unemployment insurance programs and essentially providing social support to such low income families who can't afford to work because of such unforeseen circumstances. By providing safe child care mechanisms where child care is subsidized and parents are able to work so that the economic stability is enhanced and health concerns are addressed in a timely manner.