Roosevelt Rundown

A Childcare Cliff Is Looming

August 11, 2023

And what we need to fix the system.

The Roosevelt Rundown features our top stories of the week.

Little kids playing with colorful wooden building blocks on the table

(Photo by Lourdes Balduque/Getty Images)

We Need to Invest in Childcare

With emergency funding for childcare set to expire at the end of September, American families could soon be facing a dark reality: More than 3 million children could lose care, and millions of parents might be forced out of the labor market, as Senators Elizabeth Warren and Tina Smith write for CNN.

Government should act quickly to prevent that dire possibility. And it should go further, restructuring what has always been a broken childcare system, and making supply-side investments.

“Our social policy is not designed to give people—particularly women and parents—the support they need to work jobs,” Roosevelt’s Mike Konczal wrote earlier this year.

“Care is exactly the kind of thing that could get lost in a narrow focus on supply chains and materials, but it’s one of the things we know matters most for workers.”

Learn more about what government can do in “Supply-Side Childcare Investments: Policies to Develop an Equitable and Stable Childcare Industry,” by Roosevelt’s Suzanne Kahn and Steph Sterling.

 

Crypto’s Risks to Retirement Security

Earlier this summer, a group of big-name institutional investors—including Charles Schwab and Fidelity Digital Assets—announced their partnership in a new crypto exchange, EDX Markets.

But while the names are bigger, the risks and volatility of crypto remain—and could endanger pension funds.

“American families rely on a limited number of financial tools to secure their retirement,” Roosevelt in Washington Fellow Jordan Miller writes.

“Those Americans who do have the security of a pension fund should not have to worry that, through no fault of their own, their money has been exposed to crypto, endangering the solvency of their entire retirement.”

Read on about the risks of crypto.

Learn more about the Roosevelt Network’s Roosevelt in Washington Fellowship for undergraduate students.

 

What We’re Reading

Oil-Friendly Climate Advocates Shocked to Learn Big Oil Is Bad [by Roosevelt Fellow Kate Aronoff] – The New Republic

Buybacks Are Down, Production Is Up – The American Prospect

Why thousands of LA service workers are on strike – Vox

 

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