This blog post was written by Donna Seymour for our 2018 PowHer The Vote campaign.

In a classic Catch-22, New York State ranks #10 with an overall score of 51.95 in the 2018 Best and Worst States for Working Moms survey. It is No. 1 with Best Day Care System but No. 48 with Highest Cost Day Care. But that survey doesn’t really capture the child care dilemma rural families find themselves in, day in and day out. Women make up almost half of the US workforce, but find themselves often behind the 8-ball when trying to find someone to care for their children.

Rural areas, which make a very large percentage by geography of the state, are often child care desserts, without even one registered or licensed day care in some townships. And as for affordability, too often in New York it is cheaper to send your child to college than it is to a high quality day care.

According to a report from Child Care Aware of America, the national average cost for child care is nearly $8,700 a year. Single parents pay nearly 36 percent of their income for child care expenses for one child, while married couples pay 10 percent. In New York State, that cost is $14,144 a year!

This conundrum is very well understood by American voters, who strongly support policies that improve access to affordable, high-quality child care and want – and expect – their leaders at both the federal and state level to get the need and to act.

On the one hand parents need to work, but when child care is not available, is too expensive or does not meet their needs (split shifts; after-hours needs, etc.), it can drive them further into poverty. And poverty is something rural New Yorkers are far too familiar with.

Proposed changes to the social safety net that are working through Congress right now will make an impossible situation worse. If low-income people with children have to meet strict work requirements to qualify for assistance, the lack of child care sets them up for failure. And it sets their children up for failure, as well.

In my large, rural county, one in four children lives in poverty. St. Lawrence County is the seventh most impoverished county in New York with more than 27 percent of kids living below the federally established poverty level, according to the state Department of Health. The most recent data available shows 19,107 or about 19.2 percent of St. Lawrence County’s trackable residents living below the poverty line. That’s significantly higher than the state and federal poverty rates, at around 16 percent.

Now, unless you subscribe the dictum of Ebenezer Scrooge, “Are there no prisons? No workhouses?” we can not blame these children for the situation they find themselves in. Additionally, St. Lawrence County ranks No. 4 of New York’s 62 counties where residents struggle with hunger, and 40% of all Americans struggle to pay for at least one basic need like food or rent.

And if you are a child care worker, you are much more likely to be at risk for poverty yourself:

Nationwide, 53 percent of child care workers were on at least one public assistance program between 2014 and 2016, the Early Workforce Index report states. In 2017, the median wage for U.S. child care workers was $10.72 per hour or $22.290 per year. Child care workers in the report include adults who work with infants and toddlers in child care centers and some home-based settings.

How serious is the child care crises in America? Many folks are having fewer kids because of costs. “Child care is too expensive” was the top reason (64 percent), with “worried about the economy” at No. 3 (49 percent) and “can’t afford more children” (44 percent) coming in fourth, showing that economic insecurities and financial concerns are causing many young Americans to skip or delay having kids.

If, as the Center for American Progress has surveyed, voters want child care to a front and center issue up for discussion – and action – by political leaders this year, it is incumbent on all of us to make sure we put child care on the radar screens of candidates running for state and federal officials this November. You can #PowHerTheVote by asking this question and demanding good answers to it!