Anderson edited "Leveraging: A Political, Economic and Societal Framework" (Springer, 2014), has taught at five universities and ran for the Democratic nomination for a Maryland congressional seat in 2016.
We have had a national child-care crisis for many years, some would say decades. During the worst of the pandemic years the American Rescue Plan provided an increase in the Child Tax Credit (which can be used for child-care) from $2,000 up to $3,600 for most families with children under age five and from $2,000 up to $3,000 for children ages six to 17.
The Dependent Care Flexible Spending Act provides for deducting up to 35 percent of child-care expenses for a maximum potential credit of $2,100. The consensus amongst child-care advocates is that the bulk of child-care expenses, for low-income families and middle-class families, are still borne by parents.
There are currently a set of bills that have been sponsored or are in the process of being sponsored in the House and the Senate by Democrats and Republicans to address the child-care crisis. Members of Congress who are championing bills include Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA).
The child-care crisis is a little bit like the Middle East. However you approach it, there are other aspects of the problem that are hard to address at the same time. The problem has been brewing for generations. There is clearly no simple solution to the problem. Nor is there agreement about what the problem is.
The problem starts as soon as a baby is born (cases of adoption are more complicated). The problem in question is who will take care of the child when the child is not in school. Consider these stages:
- Stage 1: Children are not in school from birth till kindergarten, which is typically age five.
- Stage 2: Some children are in half-day pre-school, which is typically age four.
- Stage 3: Children are not in school when first grade is dismissed, which could be 12 pm or 3 pm.
- Stage 4: Children are not in school when grades second through eight dismiss their students, which is approximately 3 pm.
- Stage 5: High school, when students are also dismissed at approximately 3 pm.
For children whose parents live in states where there is paid parental leave (Connecticut, Oregon, Colorado, Hawaii, Delaware, New Mexico, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Maryland as of Oct. 2023), the child-care problem may arise in month three or month six of the child's life.
One of the chief reasons that Congress has not appropriated sufficient funds to address the early stages of the child-care challenge, let alone all of the stages is that Congress, indeed the country, is divided on the question of whether it would be better for families to have a parent at home rather than put children in child-care centers. For decades progressives have fought to give women equal opportunities in the workplace; indeed, they blasted conservatives who they claim kept women trapped in their homes as caretakers for their children and husbands. There has been a backlash against this point of view, one which not only supports giving women the opportunity to be primary caretakers during the work week but men as well.
There is a straightforward solution to the problem: Provide parents with a choice of robust child care support or a tax credit, at least for three years, for a stay-at-home parent, for a mother or father. For example, families might be provided with $15,000 of child-care support for their young child; or they might be provided with a $15,000 tax credit so that the mother or father (or both if they switch from time to time) stays at home to be the primary caretaker. This approach would support both models of parenting in the early years of a child's life. Addressing single parent homes would require special attention since a $15,000 tax credit or transfer payment would probably not be sufficient to support a family with one parent and one child.
The entire child-care problem is very complicated and resolving it will require a lot of money, whether it comes from the federal government, state governments, employers, employee payroll tax deductions, or some combination. Focusing on the child-care crisis -- which is related to the paid parental leave crisis since the child-care crisis is larger to the extent that we do not have a paid parental leave policy -- may be more prudent at this time since momentum has been lost on the paid parental leave effort. The debate will never be resolved about the best way to raise children, and that is why we must support both sides of the debate. Congress must support both models for raising children and parental choices about work/family balance.
Demonstrators rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court as justices hear oral arguments on whether President Donald Trump can deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)
Luz Angela Nuñez with her daughter Aisha Quershi Nuñez at their home in College Point, Queens. Photo: Mia Anzalone for Documented.
Kimberly Alvarez, 25, with her daughter Evangeline and her husband John Alvarez in Medellin, Colombia. Photo courtesy of Kimberly Alvarez.Alvarez arrived in New York City in February 2024 with her husband John Alvarez as asylum seekers from Venezuela. In April 2025, Alvarez found out she was pregnant with her first child, a baby girl. Her first reaction, she said, was fear.“How am I going to keep her alive?” she said. “That’s what I was thinking. ‘How am I going to be able to take care of her?’”At the beginning of Alvarez’s pregnancy, she said she was aware of the immigration enforcement occurring around the country, but vowed not to let it deter her from showing up to her doctor’s appointments.“When you went out, you were always on alert because you didn’t know if [ICE] might be around. I never saw anything suspicious,” Alvarez said. “But of course, you feel scared.”In October, when Alvarez was six months pregnant, her husband was detained by ICE agents at 26 Federal Plaza. When the immediate shock wore off, she obsessively checked the Online Detainee Locator System to find out where her husband went. A day later, she discovered that he was being kept at Delaney Hall detention center in New Jersey. Alvarez quickly set up an account to pay for phone calls, and every two days, she would pay about $10 for a one-hour call, updating her husband about the baby, her appointments and how she was doing.“Crying was the only way for me to release the tension,” said Alvarez, who worried that her lack of sleep and bad diet were impacting her baby. “Crying was the only way for me to release the tension.”—Kimberly AlvarezThat tension built up day by day, week by week following her husband’s arrest. Alvarez had stopped her work as a cleaner in the neighborhood’s synagogues two weeks before her husband’s detention because of her pregnancy. The plan, she said, was to rely solely on his income as a maintenance worker for “the food, the rent, everything.” Left with few choices, Kimberley had to rely on her mother’s income as a cleaner. The older woman had moved to New York from North Carolina to assist with Alvarez’s pregnancy. “I feel like I’m supposed to help my mom, not the other way around,” Alvarez said. “I felt powerless because I couldn’t do anything.”On Dec. 9, Alvarez gave birth to a daughter, Evangeline. While her baby was healthy, Alvarez’s anxieties did not go away. While she returned to cleaning synagogues a few months after Evangeline’s birth to help make ends meet, Alvarez and her daughter rarely left home. Alvarez said she felt paralyzed, getting frequent alerts from a neighborhood WhatsApp group when ICE was spotted nearby. One day, she said, ICE arrested her friend’s husband in Sunset Park, in an area where she would sometimes take Evangeline for walks.“I’m so afraid that I’ll go out and run into one of them and that they’ll take her away from me,” Alvarez said. “That’s my biggest fear, that someone will take her away from me and I won’t know where my daughter is.”In March, her husband decided to voluntarily remove himself from the United States and move back to Colombia, where he is originally from. It was a family decision, but it was not a happy one — hiring immigration lawyers was too expensive, Alvarez said, adding that staying in the U.S. felt too uncertain. 
