Real Solutions to the Childcare Crisis

It is no surprise that we have a childcare crisis in this country. The U.S. is one of only six countries that doesn’t provide paid family leave and is the only World Health Organization country with maternal deaths rising, rather than falling. The good news? A brighter future for families is possible! In this episode, Christian F. Nunes speaks with Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, Executive Director, CEO, and Co-Founder of MomsRising, a grassroots organization of more than a million people working to achieve economic security for families, moms, and women in the U.S. Kristin shares how changes in policy can transform the state of childcare so everyone can be supported in their decision to raise children, and how investing in families means investing in our national economy. 

Whether you have a mom, know a mom, employ a mom, or are a mom, this issue impacts everyone. Tune in to this impassioned discussion for advice about how to get involved and to learn more about the inspiring changes advancing care, health, and equity for us all.

Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner is author of the book “Keep Marching: How Every Woman Can Take Action and Change Our World,” and host of the radio program “Breaking Through (Powered by MomsRising).” You can find out more by visiting her website. 

Listen to new episodes of Feminism NOW released every other Wednesday. To find out more about the National Organization for Women, visit our website.

Creators and Guests

Host

Christian Nunes

CC

Producer

Caroline Cooper

IB

Editor

Ismael Balderas-Wong

KR

Guest

Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner

RC

Editor

Reese Clutter

SN

Writer

Stu Nolan

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Christian F. Nu...: Hello. Hello everyone. I'm Christian F. Nunes, the National President of the National Organization for Women, and this is Feminism NOW.
Unless you've been under a rock, you've probably read the headlines or experienced for yourself, the fact that the childcare crisis in this country [00:00:30] is an extremely serious issue. The sky-high cost of childcare often means a parent can't work outside the home, and that has big economic consequences for families and for employers. We also don't have paid family medical leave in this country. We are one of the only countries in this world that don't provide this benefit, and that is truly a shame. That means there's no guarantee that someone who needs to take time off from their job [00:01:00] to provide for their loved one can afford to do so. So it's a lot. Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner is the Executive Director and Co-founder of MomsRising, and she's a feminist on the front lines of this fight. Welcome, Kristin.
Kristin Rowe-Fi...: Thanks so much for having me. I'm so glad to be here.
Christian F. Nu...: Yes, I'm so excited to have you here. You have been one person on the front lines for decades doing this work, and we're so excited to have you in this call and on [00:01:30] the show to really talk about what's really happening with the childcare crisis, the care infrastructure, and what's really going on with that. So before we get started in this conversation, is there anything you want to share to the listeners?
Kristin Rowe-Fi...: Well, thank you for listening. Thank you for taking action. Thank you for being part of a growing movement that is just so powerful and so needed, and thank you for having me on.
Christian F. Nu...: Absolutely. Well, I was telling someone the other day that one of the things I love about Kristin is [00:02:00] Kristin is always prepared to be an advocate. And I mean when I tell you she's always prepared, her purse is always full of materials to hand out, and I love this because she's completely unwavering advocate for the change. And so one of the things, Kristin is not only an advocate, she's also an author. She has several books about childcare, it's about care infrastructure that's out there. So she's been doing this work and she's serious about it. I was reading some of your op-eds that you've written in Newsweek and CNN, [00:02:30] and one of the most interesting things we're talking about, and especially as we're going into this election year for everyone, is to understand that 86% of women become moms in the US, right, and nearly 75 million registered voters are mom voters. So this is why this is an important issue. But before we start this conversation, can you help listeners understand what is care infrastructure and how care infrastructure impacts everyone's daily life?
Kristin Rowe-Fi...: [00:03:00] It's a big question, and I love this question because first of all, everybody listening right now has either received care or given care and most often both. And we have people who are in the paid care workforce and in the unpaid care workforce really making our country work. But like you said in the opening, our country is decades and decades behind really the rest of the planet earth when it comes to creating that care [00:03:30] infrastructure so that parents can go to much needed jobs, so that kids can thrive, so that care workers can earn living wages, and so that businesses and our economy bloom. What is that care infrastructure? It's access to affordable childcare. It's making sure that childcare and care workers earn living wages so they can stay in those professions. It's making sure that we have paid medical leave, just like you said, just like every other country except six on the planet earth.
It's making sure that we have [00:04:00] elder care and disability care so that people can age and live with dignity. And it's making sure that we have maternal health equity, because right now the United States of America is the only world health organization country with maternal morbidity or maternal deaths rising, many more people are dying rather than falling. And black women are three or four times as likely to die in childbirth as white women. This is not acceptable. It's not okay. It's that flat out crisis, but studies show [00:04:30] that we can solve this, that we can build that care infrastructure, which is all of those policies together, and we can all thrive, not just us as moms, but also dads, caregivers, caretakers, kids, businesses, and the economy. And studies also show that building that care infrastructure does a very important thing that we've rarely talk about with our wages.
Christian F. Nu...: Absolutely. So you brought up two really important parts. One, you said that there are only six countries that don't have [00:05:00] livable wages. And another part was seeing how United States is so far behind in this. And it's really interesting to me when we talk about that because a lot of times so many people look to United States of America as a go-to country that they want to emulate and be like, but yet our people are suffering in this country. They're suffering when it comes to being able to provide and be healthy and have this quality of care and wage that could really provide a sustainable [00:05:30] life. So let's talk about what are those six countries? Could you name those off for us? Do you know them?
Kristin Rowe-Fi...: Oh my gosh. They actually change all the time. But it's usually Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, Lesotho and the United States of America. And then there's two more that float in and out. That's countries without access to paid family medical leave. One of the things that's interesting is that even our Federal Reserve Chair, Jerome Powell has said, "That our lack of a care infrastructure is holding us back in [00:06:00] international competitiveness." So what's happening is our lack of a care infrastructure isn't just hurting our hearts, isn't just hurting our homes, isn't just hurting us individually, it's hurting us collectively. Studies show that businesses do better when we have a care infrastructure, because when you don't have access to affordable childcare, right now childcare costs more than college, and you don't have access to paid family medical leave when a new baby arrives or a serious health crisis strikes, you get pushed out of the labor force.
So then businesses have that supply [00:06:30] chain issues because they have empty job positions, they have to pay more money in recruitment and retraining, and actually our economy loses out as well. And lack of a care infrastructure means big wage discrimination. This is something that's rarely talked about. So being a mom is a greater predictor of wage and hiring discrimination. And because of structural racism, moms of color experience compounded wage hits to the extent that Latino moms earn just 47 cents to a white dad's dollar [00:07:00] and black moms just 51 cents to a white dad's dollar. That's not okay. But studies show these solutions are possible. And then when we passed these care infrastructure policies for moms and non-moms, then we all win and those wage gaps narrow and our GDP goes up by about 5%. So this is all of us winning together. I always like to get in that part. A, solutions are possible. B, we all win.
Christian F. Nu...: Well, let's talk about this a little bit more because I think this is really important what you just brought out. Because we hear about [00:07:30] gender wage gaps all the time, but what you also just pointed out is that gender wage gaps based on rates create even more disparity and more gap when you are a mother. So there's one thing when you are just a single woman and by race, your gender wage gap is less compared to white man, but if you add being a mother, it expands even further.
Kristin Rowe-Fi...: Absolutely, absolutely. And single moms have compounded wage hits. So we're really looking at Dr. Kimberly Crenshaw coined [00:08:00] the term intersectionality. I love her. You can really see the impact of intersectional racism and discrimination and gendered discrimination when you look at what happens when you become a mom in the United States of America. And it's absolutely clear that we have a crisis and we know we have a crisis, right? Every day, if you talk to other moms, "How do you make it all work?" You can't. It's impossible. But somehow in our country of rugged [00:08:30] individualism, we have decided that it is on the shoulders of moms to make the impossible work.
Well, we can't make the impossible work, but what we can do is we can join together and build that movement to create possible situations by building the foundations of success for hardworking moms and dads and people who've ever had a mom or dad. And that is that care infrastructure. And so we know that when this many people are having the same types of crisis at the same time, we don't have an epidemic of personal failures. It's [00:09:00] not our fault that we can't make it all work. Instead, we can and must build that national structural change together. And we're taking big steps towards doing that. We're seeing some actual positive momentum here.
Christian F. Nu...: Absolutely. And as you mentioned in one of your articles, you said that, "This is an issue by design." So we can then choose to create care infrastructure that is actually working for positive solutions and sustainability and protection [00:09:30] and success and health versus a place of inaction that creates disparities in oppression discrimination. So thank you for pointing that out because I think sometimes we forget that inaction is a choice, right? When you choose not to do anything, that is a choice. So I love that fact you brought that out. So let's talk a little bit more about this. In 2019, bipartisan policy center nationwide surveyed said that 66% of parents said that childcare affects the number of hours that they can work, right? [00:10:00] And that same study found that parents missing from the workforce costs the economy between 33 and 55 billion for the next 10 years. So we know that this is really not a Republican versus Democratic issue, right? But when it comes down to sort of past policy, people are trying to make this a partisan issue. Why do you think that is?
Kristin Rowe-Fi...: Well, you're exactly right. That to the average voter, this is not a partisan issue. Again, it's not a partisan issue. [00:10:30] Even 76% of Trump voters support building that care infrastructure. And actually when we go into city councils, county councils, state legislatures, it's often not a partisan issue there either. Where it is a partisan issue is in the US Congress and people on the Republican side who are running for president have somehow decided that instead of building a better nation where everyone can thrive, they're going to focus on bans, [00:11:00] censorship, harm and limiting our freedoms. That is a bad decision, people, because your constituents Republican leadership are with us, they don't want bans and they actually do want a care infrastructure. We just saw this played out in the 2023 elections in November. We saw of the 134 school board races where moms for liberty made endorsements.
Moms for Liberty is an extremist group that the Southern Poverty Law Center is named a hate group because of their agenda [00:11:30] of bans and censorship where they made endorsements, 70% lost, right? They lost the majority, right? When people know what's going on and when they vote, we see justice advancing. Similarly, the care infrastructure, that's supported across Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Libertarians at the local level, but the Republican leadership in Congress is absolutely out of step. What is it going to take to get the Republican leadership in step? It's going to take our votes, it's going to take our voices, it's going to take our stories, [00:12:00] it's going to take persistence, which is my favorite thing in politics. It's going to take being the squeaky wheel again and again. It's going to take not giving up, and it's going to take knowing that the majority of America is on our side no matter what the political party is, and that we have some outdated relics in that Republican Party leadership who need to go. I'll just say it. They need to go.
Christian F. Nu...: They should have gone a long time ago. I'll say it for you. They should have gone a long, long time ago. So I'll say it for you. [00:12:30] Yes, Kristin. So speaking of that, when you talk about bans, that the Dobbs decision and the decrease in access to safe abortion and reproductive rights impact of the state of childcare as well and the ability for people to raise families. Let's talk a little bit more about that. What do you think the Dobbs decision had and the impacts on that with regarding the state of childcare in the US?
Kristin Rowe-Fi...: The Dobbs decision was devastating. It's devastating across communities and particularly to moms. A lot of people don't talk about it because six out of [00:13:00] 10 people who need and have abortions are already moms. So when we're talking about access to abortion care, we're talking about parents oftentimes. And so that I think is critically important. And we're also talking about a situation where we've got the very same people who are opposed to us being able to decide if we're going to have children, if so, how many kids to have when, banning our ability to take care of our children by blocking the building of a care infrastructure, which again, their constituents support these Republican leaders [00:13:30] are out of step.
So when we look at the Dobbs decision, we see moms across the country in red states, in purple states, and of course in blue states rising at the state level to protect our access to make sure that the freedoms that we've enjoyed aren't less available to our own children, right? None of us want our children to have fewer freedoms than we do. And we just saw that in Ohio again at the ballot box in November with moms, dads, people rising [00:14:00] up to support access to abortion care pretty much every time it's on the ballot, when people can actually vote no matter what political party, we do see the actual voter supporting access to keep those bans off our bodies and so that our children can be just as free as we've been.
Christian F. Nu...: And I think it's interesting too because there's so much misinformation and intentional disinformation about abortion access is not there, that they want people to believe that moms aren't the individuals [00:14:30] that are having abortions. And they also want you to believe that part of family planning and part of access doesn't include access to abortion. And I think that it's important for people to be very educated about this, to understand that this is something that everybody needs access to so that we kind of dispel those myths and make sure that we understand the importance of reproductive freedom and everyone's ability to have access to their healthcare and their human rights. So [00:15:00] I thank you for naming that and putting that information out there. Part of this goes into more about what else is happening when we're talking about care infrastructure and what's happening when we see disproportionality, the impact when black women and BIPOC women are not getting access, and that we're seeing that black women are three times more likely to die in childbirth when they're not getting the healthcare that they need.
And that is because of structural racism, right? And we see moms of color experience disproportionate of wage discrimination. [00:15:30] And when you think about that, when a person doesn't have paid Medical Family Leave Act or Pregnancy Workers Fairness Act, which we just finally got past, right, but we still know there's people who still don't get it because depending on their job or how much they work or how many hours they work, we still see these things. How do we bring an intersectional lens into the work to advance rights for women and moms so that we can make sure that their employers are giving these rights and educating the workers so they know what access and rights that they do have?
Kristin Rowe-Fi...: It's absolutely paramount that [00:16:00] we bring an intersectional lens to all that we do. Let's be clear. We as women and moms in America are in the same burning building. It's on fire, but there is heat that is higher in different rooms. Different people are impacted with more severity, and it's the people who are closest to the problem, who are experiencing the most heat, who have also the experience that's closest to the solutions. So when we're talking about maternal justice, for example, we absolutely number one [00:16:30] need to address maternal health equity. There's the momnibus in Congress that's been moving through. It's a whole bunch of different bills together. Some of them have passed, a lot more need to passed to help address maternal health equity. But we really need to make sure that we're centering people who are most impacted to get to the solutions the fastest through all of our policies everywhere.
I hope that as we move forward, we keep the pressure on Congress [00:17:00] to let them know that we are here united pushing for change and we're not going to give up. One of the things I've been thinking about lately is this issue of persistence. You can get cynical looking at the news. It's easy, but we have to keep that hope in our hearts, and that hope has to include an intersectional lens of how we address these issues. There is no gender justice without racial justice, without economic justice. They're intertwined. They're one and the same. And in that moment [00:17:30] of hope, we need to double down on standing up as we get closer and closer to 2024. We saw a ton of wins at the ballot box we were just talking about in 2023. We still see momentum growing, but we have so much more to do. So that's a long answer to a question that probably actually requires an even longer answer, but thank you.
Christian F. Nu...: I want you to go a little bit more in depth for me, because one of the things we hear a lot that we have to center, the people who are directly impacted by these things, and like you said, who have the most heat [00:18:00] in the room. So can you tell us examples of what it looks like when we're sending in those people?
Kristin Rowe-Fi...: So I have a very specific example. So at MomsRising, we have over a million members. We have members in every state in the nation, and every day there are stories that come in from lots of different people, right? And we then use the moment in time where our voices are needed to open avenues for our busy members to be heard by the leaders who have the power to make the difference [00:18:30] that we're seeking. So a couple of weeks ago, we brought moms from over 20 states to the White House. The moms had different stories, and we said, we want to take a moment to open the avenue for people who are directly impacted to be heard by leaders at the very top. So this is us bringing people directly impacted to the White House. We shared our stories. We sent in also stories of all 50 states on childcare to every single member of Congress.
And we shared our stories [00:19:00] and we said, "Here's what's happening with our lives." We shared stories from people who are unhomed because they don't have access to childcare. We shared stories from people who have been pushed out of jobs because they don't have access to childcare. We've shared stories from people who are experiencing such significant impacts because they don't have access to childcare. And we said, "We need $16 billion in childcare stabilization funds because we just had the $16 billion childcare stabilization grants end at the end of September, and we [00:19:30] cannot go on in this way. We not only need those funds, we actually need to transform our childcare system so that we have actual childcare solution instead of an ongoing patchwork solution to an ongoing crisis. And so after we shared those stories and working in collaboration with many organizations like NOW, like National Women's Law Center, like many, many, many organizations, within a couple of days of hearing those stories, the White House made that supplemental budget request to the whole US Congress for that $16 [00:20:00] billion.
So what does it look like when you have people voices heard who are closest to the problem? It looks like change. And a lot of times people think, "Oh, my voice, my story, my experience, it's that powerful." It is. People are more powerful than they think. Your story is powerful. Your voice is powerful, your vote is powerful. And the closer you are to the problem, the closer you are to illustrating what we're actually facing in America. And it is a crisis. And the closer, you're also to showing elected leaders what the unintended consequences [00:20:30] sometimes of some well-intentioned legislative initiatives could be. We've seen that too. Stories change lives. Stories change policies and stories center people most impacted.
Christian F. Nu...: Well, kudos to you and MomsRising for leading that because I think it was so critical to have those voices heard and to show the disconnect so often that happens in actual policy and actual real life. I'm a social worker, right? I just remember, I always tell people [00:21:00] being in practice and so many times just seeing what was really happening and then [inaudible 00:21:06] and being like, "This is just not how it is in real life." And then coming to DC and working in dc being able to speak and being on stakeholder meetings and being like, "Well, this is really what is going on." And being able to say, "This is what we need to do because this is really how it plays out." And by you letting those voices being heard from the people who are directly impacted and having their narratives and from them to share how it's directly impacting [00:21:30] their lives, it really gives it opportunity for policy to be shifted.
So thank you for that because I think it's so important to really show this is how we center persons and people directly impact it. This is what we do when we talk about [inaudible 00:21:44] shifting and changing, and we're being changing [inaudible 00:21:46] policy. So pay attention to Ms. Kristin and MomsRising. So Kristin, I want you to tell me a little bit more about some bright spots here. Please tell some great examples of employers that you know who are offering childcare [00:22:00] benefits and [inaudible 00:22:02] paid leave and law. Do you know of any that you'd like to share? And just we can highlight them and show examples of those who also have taken the initiative to make the change.
Kristin Rowe-Fi...: I love a lot of companies who do provide benefits in the ways of paid family medical leave and childcare. What I don't love and what lights my hair on fire, because you know my hair is always on fire, is many of those very same companies only offer those benefits to their highest [00:22:30] paid workers and leave out low wage workers. I don't love that with a fiery passion. And I have opinionated about this. I'm opinionated about a lot of things, but this one in particular. Because when you look at what's happening in the United States of America right now, 80% of low wage workers don't have access to a single paid sick day, 80%. That's ridiculous. That means you don't even have a day off. If you've got the Norovirus. What are you supposed to do? What you're supposed to do is you end up going to work anyway, [00:23:00] spreading that illness around your work.
It's something called presenteeism and costing our national economy and those businesses billions of dollars. This is an area where, as we talked about before, costs a lot of money to do no action. Many of the big employers that do offer these benefits do so because they want to retain highly valued employees. That's interesting to us from a legislative standpoint. That means that the big businesses, the ones who are doing the very best, know that we all do [00:23:30] better when we all do better, and the way to retain a valued workplace is to offer paid family medical leave, earned sick days, affordable childcare, and more within that business structure. But it's not enough.
So instead of naming those physicists, because I have opinions about this, I want every business, no matter what the size to call your member of Congress and say, "Hi, I as a business would sure like it and benefit from a national childcare system as well as National Paid Family Medical [00:24:00] Leave Program because when we nationalize those programs, it lifts the burden off businesses, makes them more competitive with one another, makes those smaller and medium businesses more competitive with the larger business, and it's universal."
So employees of all wages, no matter what, your wage is will get access to that. When we're talking about women in particular in the labor force, one of the things people don't realize is less than 10% of women in the labor force are making more than $72,000 a year. So when we look at who gets access to those benefits at [00:24:30] those highly paid benefits, it's usually not even a majority of women. It drives me nuts. Again, hair on fire. Everybody call your member of Congress and ask for national structural change.
Christian F. Nu...: It brings up also a really great point about how we place value in people, right? And to me, I personally believe we all have the same value regardless of what position we have. And so if we're really shifting our thoughts about value and how we put value in people, well, why is [00:25:00] it that only C-suite and senior level managers are getting paid medical leave and family medical leave, but our janitors and our associates are not? It shouldn't matter, right? If we are valuing each person as equal and worthy and have access to this company, which everyone does, then everyone should be able to take care of their family, to be able to be sick and be well and rested and not have to worry. So it makes a shift. And [00:25:30] this is important for companies listening, those employers, those bosses, those owners, if you value life and you value worth, you should give everyone the same worth. And those out there as Kristin said, call. Let them know that we all deserve the same things. Kristin, that was a nugget you just gave us. Yes. I love the nuggets.
Kristin Rowe-Fi...: I'm not going to give people credit for just giving highly paid people [00:26:00] access to benefits.
Christian F. Nu...: Yes, I know, but that's a good point. That made me even question that question because I was like, "She's so right, because I believe everyone has the same value."
Kristin Rowe-Fi...: I mean, honestly. The people who are least likely to get benefits are care workers, childcare workers, home care workers, domestic workers.
Christian F. Nu...: Who have to take care of the people's children, right?
Kristin Rowe-Fi...: That's who needs it the most.
Christian F. Nu...: Yes.
Kristin Rowe-Fi...: There is no work. The care work is the work that makes all other work possible. It should be the most valued, not [00:26:30] the least. And so this is why my hair ignites when I [inaudible 00:26:34].
Christian F. Nu...: I hear you. Oh my goodness. She gave us a nugget, you all. She gave us a nugget to close out the show. Kristin, thank you. Thank you for setting us straight today on Feminism NOW. Thank you for joining us. This has been a great conversation. I appreciate you so much. NOW is here to support and be with you in this fight for care infrastructure. [00:27:00] If anyone wants to continue working and learn more about MomsRising, momsrising.org is where you go. And if you would like to learn more about what NOW is doing, you can read up on our issues at NOW, NOW.org. Read about our core issues and our approach to advancing women's equality, gender equality, and getting involved. Thank you for listening, and we will see you back in two weeks.