Balancing Acts: Stories of Women at the Crossroads of Working and Caregiving
We’ve all seen them—YouTube breakdowns, TikToks, and countless articles debating whether you need to make $25 or $50 an hour just to make ends meet—in a country where the federal minimum wage has been stalled at $7.25 an hour for over a decade. For millions of women and families, especially those balancing work and caregiving, these numbers aren’t just hypothetical—they are an everyday reality.
Take Raynique, a single mother of four and grandmother of one in South Carolina, who told us about her child care struggles. She pays 32% of her annual income for child care—and that’s with a state voucher helping keep overall costs manageable. But voucher programs come with strict income limits that generally haven’t kept up with rising living costs.
“If I pick up a second job to cover food or emergencies, I might lose my voucher,” Raynique explains. “Then I’d need an even better job just to afford the child care I need to work in the first place. It’s a trap.”
Her fears, she said, go beyond finances:
- Constant stress about staying healthy because missing work isn’t an option.
- Limited time with her kids.
- Rare moments of joy due to relentless planning.
- The impossibility of pursuing another job that could advance her career because she can’t afford the additional child care it would require.
Living paycheck to paycheck with no safety net forces families like Raynique’s into impossible situations. The cruel paradox is clear: work extra hours or take on an additional job, and you risk losing the very support that keeps you afloat. Families are left stuck, unable to save, plan for the future, or simply relax.
“I try not to live in fear,” Raynique says, “but it’s hard when it feels like the system isn’t designed for people like us. We’re punished for trying to get ahead.”
And it’s not just families feeling the squeeze.
Early educators are often paid poverty-level wages and are barely holding on, especially now that federal funding that kept the child care sector afloat during the pandemic has run out. With the recent expiration of these critical funds, many programs are left scrambling to stay open while keeping costs manageable for families.
Felicitas, an early educator, described the ripple effect to us: “Without funding, centers will shut down or raise tuition, forcing parents to quit their jobs. Families lose, workers lose, and the economy loses.”
Her words underscore a painful truth: child care programs and early educators are the backbone of family and economic stability, yet they are underpaid and undervalued. Many lack access to health insurance, retirement benefits, or the financial stability needed to support their own families. As Felicitas put it: “We nurture the minds and bodies of our children, especially in those critical first years. We’re essential workers. During the pandemic, we were the ones still showing up for our community. But many of us are making poverty wages. That has to change.”
The challenges she describes are part of a much larger crisis that is squeezing families across the country. The numbers tell a grim story: on average, families who pay for child care spend 24% of their household income on that care—and child care costs have outpaced inflation, with one-third of families reporting higher expenses between September 2023 and September 2024.
This isn’t an individual budgeting problem—it’s a systemic failure. Families are trapped in a cycle of rising costs, stagnant wages, and insufficient support. Women—especially women of color—bear the brunt of this crisis. The expiration of the pandemic-era child care funding, once a crucial lifeline, has left many families making impossible choices between work, caregiving, and basic survival.
Even as overall inflation has eased, families are still paying 20% more for essential goods than in 2020. This intensifies the strain on households already stretched to their limits. Yet, instead of addressing the root causes, policymakers remain locked in debates over work requirements for safety-net programs like Medicaid and SNAP, ignoring the reality that most recipients are already working.
Real Solutions Are Within Reach
Raynique’s story isn’t unique, and it does not have to remain the norm. Families shouldn’t face impossible choices between work, caregiving, and survival. The solution is clear: federal investment in child care is crucial to ensuring both affordability and long-term stability for families, early educators, and the economy.
When 32% of your income goes to child care, the problem is systemic, not personal. Families can’t budget out of policy failures, and providers can’t sustain an underfunded system alone.
This is about more than alleviating today’s struggles—it’s about building a future where families thrive. As Felicitas says: “If we don’t fight for change now, families and providers will only keep falling behind.”
The stakes are high, but the solutions are clear. It’s time to act—for families like Raynique’s, for providers like Felicitas, and for a society that values its people.
