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The Crisis for Affordable Childcare in New York In order for a single parent in Brooklyn, New York with one pre-schooled and one school-age child to make it out of poverty, he or she must earn a minimum of $ 44, 592 per year -- without any government or private support, according to a new study, "The Self-Sufficiency Standard for the City of New York. " That same family would need to earn $ 44, 208 in the Bronx, $ 46, 728 in Staten Island, $ 46, 836 in Queens, $ 48, 048 in Upper Manhattan and $ 74, 232 in Lower Manhattan while the federal poverty level for this family is $ 14, 150. In a study done by several cooperating agencies, including United Way and The Women's Center for Education and Career Advancement & Wider Opportunities for Women, the three major issues are training and education, affordable childcare and affordable housing. The two agencies mentioned above have targeted the issue of affordable childcare, because it is a primary need in order to help provide training and education to help families raise their income. While the problem of affordable childcare is especially serious for single parent families (mostly single mothers), it is by no means a problem only for them. Affordable childcare is an absolute necessity even in two parent families when the income level of the two together often still falls below the national poverty line and far below the realistic basic minimum for life in New York. It is easy to say that is a family cannot afford to live where they live, they should move, but the reality is that the cycle of poverty prevents mobility.
When a family is in need of different government programs just to survive, moving is often not an option, since there are often residence rules and other barriers which are enormous when you try to consider the health and safety of the children. Different assistance programs are governed by state and local agencies, with only a few national programs, so moving from one state to another is difficult, at best. There are cases where states have actually put families on busses and sent them back to their previous state of residence in order to help them, because they did not qualify for logical programs. The state of Nevada did this during the 1970 s quite regularly, as it was sometimes the case that the family had arrived with enough, but someone had gambled it away.
A national program was instituted by Al Gore to try to help student parents with childcare, and this is allowing colleges and trade schools to offer on campus childcare at affordable rates. While this was a step in the right direction, it does not solve the problem. A recent report found that in Brooklyn's East New York, Red Hook, and Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhoods, there is already a lack of affordable childcare services. But if the new laws continue to be enforced in the manner inspectors have been effecting them for the past few months, some 84 percent of day care providers in these three neighborhoods will be forced to close. "In low-income neighborhoods where day care slots are at a premium, losing current or future [day care providers] will have effects far beyond the child who no longer has early childhood education, " the report concludes. "The parents of this child can no longer go to work and the livelihood of the provider has been taken away, eroding the economic stability of the neighborhood. " A 1999 study revealed that there were only spaces for 20 % of needs in low income neighborhoods, and that there were few evening and weekend spaces anywhere. It appears by the above report, that this situation has improved little, if at all. This is crucial for any program for low income workers to work, because the welfare of their children is central to the welfare of any family.
If no affordable childcare is available, a parent must choose between work and the safety of the children. This starts a perpetual cycle of welfare, instead of allowing these families to better their situations. The impact on society can be logically extrapolated if you consider what happens to the children without adequate childcare. If they are supervised by a parent who cannot go out to work, and the income of the family is restricted to the subsistence level, the children not only have little chance for a good education themselves, but the atmosphere in the home is so eroding due to the poverty and the parents feelings of being trapped that the children are not encouraged to try to succeed. If the parents do go out to work and the children are left with inadequate supervision, they often get into crime, gang activity and drugs.
The impact on society is even worse, as it is unlikely that many of these children will ever rise above the poverty level even should they escape the obvious problems of drug abuse and crime. Considering the statistics nationwide and the higher cost of living and accompanying higher crime rate, New York seems to be a place where the issues of adequate affordable childcare for low income families are of prime importance to all Americans. "A Single Parent With Two Children in New York City Needs an Income of More Than $ 44, 000 to Make It Out of Poverty, Says New Report. ", PR Newswire, September 13, 2000. VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE ANNOUNCES CHILD CARE GRANTS TO HELP LOW-INCOME PARENTS ATTEND POSTSECONDONARY EDUCATION, Regulatory Intelligence Data, 08 - 16 - 1999 Carrillo, Karen Juanita. "Day care providers speak against new city policies", New York Amsterdam News, January 11, 2006
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Research essay sample on The Crisis For Affordable Childcare In New York
