Having a child under the age of 5 is hard enough, but in the United States, parenting comes with the added bonus of near-financial ruin.
If we don’t do something about this, the economic consequences for the country are not going to be pretty.[...]
Parents on almost all rungs of the income scale fall into this trap. “We’re not talking about whether or not you can afford having a child,” Robert Hiltonsmith, a senior policy analyst at Demos, told The Huffington Post. “It’s the sacrifices, the dilemmas parents are put in because of the complete lack of support from society for having a young child and also to earn an income at the same time.”[...]
“I’m not optimistic about something that’s helpful for working parents being passed by the Trump administration,” Amy Traub, an associate director of policy and research at Demos, told HuffPost.
Traub mentioned Trump’s pick to head up the Labor Department, Andy Puzder, as a troubling sign. Puzder strongly opposes paid sick leave or raising the minimum wage ― two policies that would help working parents.
But Traub is more optimistic about policy changes at the local level. Indeed, just this week, the Washington, D.C., City Council passed a generous paid parental leave law.
It’s one of several cities and a handful of states leading the way on this issue. That’s something to hope for, certainly. But it’s not enough.
