By Jocelyn Fischer and Debra Lancaster While children, parents, and employers have felt the sting of childcare market failures for several decades, deficiencies in the market were made more apparent and were more deeply felt as a result of pandemic-related closures and labor shifts [...]
By Jocelyn Fischer and Debra Lancaster. Childcare is unaffordable for many families. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services deems affordable childcare costs as those that are no more than 7 percent of families’ incomes [...]
By Sarah F. Small and Debra Lancaster. Failing childcare markets have been detrimental to the US economy in recent years.[1] We have examined the childcare crisis in New Jersey from both the supply side and the demand side [...]
By Sarah F. Small, Jocelyn Fischer, Yana van der Meulen Rodgers, and Debra Lancaster. With New Jersey facing childcare shortages, policymakers are wondering how we can improve the supply of childcare services [...]
by Sarah F. Small and Debra Lancaster Like many parents in the United States, New Jersey parents have faced some formidable obstacles finding accessible quality childcare. This is particularly true given changes in the childcare landscape during COVID-19, as documented in our recent report. In this research brief, we document regional changes in New Jersey’s [...]
by Sarah Small and Debra Lancaster Many New Jersey parents felt the sting of reduced childcare access during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, the childcare landscape has not made a recovery that meets the needs of working families and their young children. Our analysis indicates that the childcare workforce remains substantially below its [...]
By Sarah Small and Debra Lancaster With so much economic precarity brought on by the pandemic, many women in New Jersey have been confronted with issues of homelessness and inaccessible healthcare. According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Point-In-Time Count data, the number of individuals experiencing homelessness in New Jersey actually [...]
Sarah Small and Debra Lancaster Women’s work lives have been disrupted in profound ways during COVID-19: in their roles as frontline workers confronting the virus, as caregivers taking on even more unpaid care work at home due to childcare disruptions, and as unemployed workers in sectors hit hardest by business closures during the height of [...]
With childcare disruptions, deep unemployment, and job changes, women in New Jersey have faced turbulent economic prospects worse than men’s along several dimensions throughout the pandemic. However, New Jersey women are no stranger to economic inequities as the gender wage gap continues to persist. This gap gets particular attention each year on Equal Pay Day. [...]
Sarah Small and Debra Lancaster Many New Jersey parents breathed a sigh of relief upon receiving their Child Tax Credit Payments in late 2021. Our new report at the Rutgers Center for Women and Work, in partnership with the New Jersey State Policy Lab, finds most low-income parents spent the money on essentials like food, [...]
