Comment: Abortion is about the economy, stupid
By Monica Hesse / The Washington Post
Two things grabbed my attention last week.
The first was an commentary by Bernie Sanders titled “Democrats shouldn’t focus only on abortion in the midterms. That’s a mistake.” The senator from Vermont wrote that, “while the abortion issue must remain on the front burner, it would be political malpractice for Democrats to ignore the state of the economy.”
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The second thing that caught my eye was a number from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which said there are currently 100,000 fewer child-care workers than there were at the start of the pandemic. The New York Times article about the shortage outlined some of the reasons why. One reason was that child-care workers, who often make less than fast-food cashiers to perform arduous jobs that we claim to value as sacrosanct, are leaving for positions that are better paying with better benefits and less stress.
The BLS figure about child-care workers fleeing the industry is a statistical articulation of something that every parent I know already understood in their bones: Childcare in America is a horror show. It’s an every-family-for-themselves thunderdome where the cost is your entire life savings, which you have to figure out how to pay, because it’s your kid.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-abortion-is-about-the-economy-stupid/
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