Despite companies adding jobs, in the United States there are still 14 jobseekers for every 10 openings, noted economist Elise Gould in a blog post last week for the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank affiliated with the labor movement.
The Christian Science Monitor
April 18, 2016
The Economic Policy Institute (www.epi.org) has a family budget calculator that lets you enter your household size (up to two adults and four children) along with your Zip code to see how much you would need to earn to have an “adequate but modest” standard of living in that geographic area.
Des Moines Register
April 18, 2016
According to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute, day care or preschool is often more expensive than a college education. The research compared the cost of tuition at a four-year in-state college with the cost of full-time day care for a 4-year-old and found that, in 23 out of 50 states, child care cost more.
New York Magazine
April 18, 2016
A new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute finds the high cost of child care to be a significant reason why families with small children nationwide are not feeling the bounties of the economic recovery. According to the report, two major economic issues—income inequality and a slowdown in the growth of productivity—would both benefit from investments in the early childhood field. “American productivity would improve with a better-educated and healthier future workforce,” the report states. “Inequality would be immediately reduced as resources to provide quality child care are progressively made available to families with children.”
Southern California Public Radio
April 14, 2016
So much for starting the college fund early on. According to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit research facility, infant care in Massachusetts is more expensive than tuition at an in-state college or university. According to the EPI’s findings, infant care in Massachusetts is the second-highest in the country, topped only by the costs for the same services in Washington, D.C. Hiring someone in this state to take care of your infant (a baby aged 0-1 years) will cost you $6,360 more per year than in-state tuition. It will also be more expensive than your rent; according to the EPI, taking care of babies in Massachusetts costs, on average, 15.3% more than housing.
Boston.com
April 14, 2016
In nearly half the country(23 states), it’s now more expensive to educate a 4-year-old in preschool than an 18-year-old in college, according to the Wall Street Journal. The largest disparity between the cost to attend day care and the cost to attend college resides in Florida, my home state, according to Economic Policy Institute data. The average child care costs in Florida are $7,668 a year, making it 73 percent more expensive to care for a 4-year-old in Florida than for a student to attend college. “High-quality child care is out of reach for many families,” said Economic Policy Institute research assistant Tanyell Cooke. “This crisis is not limited to low-income families, nor is it unique to certain parts of the country. It affects everyone, in every state.”
Miami Herald
April 14, 2016
Putting a kid through school is a laborious, money-sucking endeavor… for which new parents should start planning much earlier than they might think. University tuition, an oft-bemoaned financial drain, isn’t necessarily where the costs start piling up. In 23 of the 50 US states, daycare or preschool can easily be more expensive than college, according to new research from the Economic Policy Institute. The think tank compared, for each state, the annual cost of full-time daycare for a four-year-old and the average tuition for a student attending an in-state, four-year institution.
Quartz
April 14, 2016
It’s a well-known fact that daycare is a financial drain on working parents; despite the often low pay of daycare workers, the cost of tuition and enrollment fees can easily run thousands of dollars a year. Now, new research from the Economic Policy Institute shows that in nearly half of the United States, full-time daycare is more expensive than tuition at in-state schools. The study, which we saw via Quartz, compared the state-by-state average cost of full-time daycare with the cost of tuition at a four-year public university. The results are eye-opening: In 23 states, daycare is more expensive than college. In Nevada, New York, and Florida, childcare costs double what in-state tuition does. According to EPI’s numbers, daycare in New York, the fourth most expensive in the United States, runs on average $14,144, roughly 107 percent more than in-state tuition; that amount is 21.2 percent of an average New York family’s income. In Florida, too, daycare takes a sizable portion of a family’s income, the average cost of $8,694 is 16.6 percent of a family’s income.
Jezebel
April 14, 2016
New research from the Economic Policy Institute supports what Maryland Family Network has known for a long time—making public investments in early childhood care and education not only helps families make ends meet but would also provide a major boost to the State’s economy.
WYPR
April 14, 2016
A study by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that the lowest income workers receive the most irregular schedules, with unpredictability leading to increased stress.
Buzzfeed
April 14, 2016