How Will You Cover Childcare This Summer?
Just in time: An expanded childcare credit of $300 a month is about to roll out
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It dawned on me a few weeks ago that I will have more hours of steady childcare this summer than I have had all school year.
Suffice it to say, we are ready for camp.
But many people aren’t. Kids under 12 still are not eligible for vaccinations, and a lot of parents remain concerned about the spread of COVID among their littlest.
On top of that concern, there’s the cost.
A recent survey of over 3,000 families found that only about half are planning to pay for any child care at all this summer. That includes camp, day care, or paying a relative or friend to watch their kids.
Of the parents who do plan to pay for childcare, about 45% will put at least some of their summer childcare costs on a credit card. They’ll pay off the debt over time, they said.
On average, parents will pay $834 per child for childcare this summer. One in five of those parents expect to spend $1,000 or more per child, the survey by Bankrate.com found.
Where I live, we’re expecting to pay more than twice that amount.
Which is why the timing is pretty great for a lot of families that another phase of the American Rescue Plan is about to roll out.
The 1.9 billion dollar stimulus package, which passed back in March, includes a direct payment of up to $300 per month per child.
Starting on July 15, families will start to receive that monthly tax benefit, which will continue every month through the end of 2021.
According to the IRS, 39 million households — covering 88% of children in the United States -- will receive the benefit.
Whether you’re eligible to receive the full amount depends on your 2020 income. Folks who made under $400,000 are likely to receive at least some money this summer.
The tech website CNET has a good breakdown of who qualifies (on this chart, AGI refers to “adjusted gross income”).
There is some discussion of extending the benefit beyond this year. Congress is considering another Biden administration relief package, the American Families Plan, and it seeks to extend the benefit through 2025.
The tax benefit is good news for a lot of us, and a second federal infrastructure proposal that includes more funding for child care would be even better.
But there’s another childcare solution that I’ll be making use of this summer, and have been finding incredibly useful over these many months: other families.
This one is tricky, because our informal networks do not replace structural policies that need to be enacted to make childcare more affordable. But this pandemic year I have leaned on friends more than any other.
Before all this, we would occasionally swap date-night babysitting with our neighbors. Now, at least six hours a week, my child spends part of her day with her friend’s families. Last Monday, I spent three hours with my daughter and her friend in the morning, and my partner spent another three hours with our kid and a different friend later that afternoon. Then, on Friday, we switched, and my kiddo spent her day with her friends’ families.
It’s not like I didn’t have a network we could have tapped for help before the pandemic. But what’s new is that we now have permission to ask for help in a way we didn’t before. We have real, concrete needs -- closed schools, forced work from home, extended unemployment -- that are all unique to this situation. And the feeling that it’s ok to say, over and over again, “Hey, I need some help,” is pretty new.
The last time a series of friends took care of my kid day after day was when I was with my father as he was dying. Should it take death, grief and loss, especially at this scale, to bring the village in?
This kind of support is something that, when the stimulus checks go away, I hope will stay for a while.
Tell us in the comments: What will you be doing for childcare this summer? And what forms of unexpected support have come your way?
Photo credit: “Raindrops keep falling on my head..” Alosh Bennett
We have had a date night swap with our friends in our building that allows for a date every other week or so, which allows for a date night that otherwise we wouldn't have (sitter fees on top of our regular daycare costs are not really do-able). it's the best--and I'm so excited to start it up again now that we are vaccinated!