December 9, 2020
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Childcare Costs Skyrocket in 2020

Child care has not been affordable for a long time now, especially not for poor and working class parents, but with the pandemic forcing the closure of schools and childcare facilities across the country, costs have shot up even more as parents scramble to figure out what to do with their children as they try to balance work and family. A new article in The Lily, provides an in-depth look into the lengths some parents are going to replace the childcare services that have evaporated over the last eight months.

For better-off parents, such as the Yaegers who are the example family in the article, costs per month were already nearing $2,000. But with schools closed, her two eldest children, previously in public school, were now part of a learning pod, a major cost increase necessitating them to dip into their savings, an more and more common measure for people across the country facing unemployment while dealing with housing, medical, and care costs. 

The Yaegers, who resisted spending more for as long as possible, were at least lucky enough to have savings into which they could dip and two jobs they could do remotely. For many Americans, a savings account is little more than a dream, and the closure of schools and free or low-cost childcare centers has been devastating, especially for parents who cannot work remotely. This stings, especially as wealthier Americans have turned to private schools, personal tutors, and small care groups, which send costs skyrocketing. 

Making matters worse, the child care industry, much like many other social services has experienced increased privatization while the federal government has done little to expand or even consider universal childcare for decades, as Claire Cain Miller pointed out last year. Caroline Kitchener, the author of The Lily piece, notes, the US remains a major outlier when it comes to child care costs. Childcare costs the typical family one-third of its income, $9,589 per year for a child under four. In bigger cities it can be almost triple that.

As we’ve pointed out, even before the pandemic, there has never been a better time to fight, forcefully, for universal child care in the U.S. 


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Health Care Workers Bring Suit Against OSHA over Pandemic Rules

November 2, 2020
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A large coalition of union-represented workers in health care and education are pressing the Ninth Circuit Court to require the Department of Labor to direct its Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to put a rule into effect which has been batted about since the scare of H1N1 in 2009.

Breastfeeding in the Era of Zoom

October 22, 2020
Pregnancy Discrimination
In the era when many office jobs and classrooms have transitioned to video conferencing software and the home/work boundary continues to blur, discomfort around breastfeeding has become a source of major contention. Case in point is a recent story that caught our attention involving a student at Fresno City College, who was publicly called out by her professor for simply asking if she could turn her video off during a lecture to feed her 10-month old.

Annual Law360 Survey Shows Gender Gap in the Legal Profession Remains Wide

October 21, 2020
Gender Discrimination
Increased awareness and focus on gender disparity at law firms has done little over the last year to make gains within the profession, especially at its highest levels, reports Law360 in its annual glass ceiling survey.

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