Childcare is considered affordable if it costs more than 7% of a family’s income, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. However, Bronx families are spending roughly 47% of their household income on out-of-home childcare for one child, the highest of any county in America, according to county-level child care data published by the U.S. Department of Labor and deep dive research by data visualization hub, American Inequality.
Despite NYC having the nation’s largest publicly funded childcare system for low-income families, mass closures of Bronx childcare programs, lack of wage increases for Bronx families and Bronx childcare workers has created childcare deserts in the areas of Middletown, Hunts Point and the North Bronx.
In 2017, the Bronx had 3,358 regulated childcare programs. But by 2022, there were roughly 2,827 programs left, according to the state.
Jeremy Ney, a writer and researcher for American Inequality, told the Bronx Times that inequities in America’s childcare model can be seen most starkly in the U.S.’s Northeast and West regions, with financial burdens most affecting low-income communities of color, where wages stagnate and childcare access thins out.
“So residents (in the Bronx) spend about, you know, one out of every $2 on childcare, which is really startling and challenging because of all the other expenses you have to pay for education and housing and groceries,” said Ney. “When you look at the median income of the Bronx, around $43,000, and how a two-bedroom apartment is $27,000 … put childcare on top of that, you don’t have enough to get by.”
Brooklyn and Queens, in addition to the Boogie Down, are among three of the top five counties in the U.S. for highest percent of income spent on childcare.
In the past few decades, childcare costs have doubled, and the demand for childcare also increased, as more women entered the labor force from 1970-2000, researchers note. In a January 2023 U.S….
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