Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/child-care-and-the-economy/5018670/
It’s on the evening news and in the morning paper headlines: the economy is down, in recession. Unemployment has topped 7% nationally and economists predict it will approach 10% by 2010. Last year, home foreclosures increased by more than 80%, a record, with over 2.3 million foreclosures total. Now, 46 states are facing budget shortfalls totaling $90 billion for Fiscal Year 2009 and $145 billion for Fiscal Year 2010, and that means prospects are real for dramatic cuts in basic services or painful tax increases.And for many child care and early learning program providers, it’s so real you can touch it. You see it in the faces of the children you work with, the parents you speak with, and, perhaps, in the shared concerns of your co-workers. And it’s this closeness to the problem that makes your voice so important these days.
The economic downturn:
The view from America’s child care programs
The Early Care and Education Consortium, an alliance of America’s leading national, regional, and independent providers of quality early childhood programs that I direct, has been compiling stories from across the country to help educate our leaders in Washington and in state capitols.1 Each day it seems we hear more ...