With several national studies showing rapidly rising child-care costs, maybe New York City is smart to offer low-interest day-care loans to parents of toddlers.
The pilot program is the first of its kind in the country and, through a local credit union, offers middle-class families of kids between the ages of 2 and 4 loans up to $11,000, which are designed to defray NYC's average annual child-care costs of $13,000, according to a New York Post article. It offers a 6 percent interest-rate and will serve approximately 40 families within the first year.
Several NYC families interviewed by the Post expressed interest in the loan:
"Natalie Bryant-Rizzieri, 34, who works part-time at a nonprofit, and her husband, a professor at LaGuardia Community College, have to stagger their schedules to make ends meet because day care is so expensive in Sunnyside, Queens.
'We've been really creative with our schedules. There's always one of us working from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. so that we only have to pay for 12 hours of child care a week,' [Bryant-Rizzieri] said. But even that costs about $200 a week for her sons, Jude, 2, and Silas, 8 months.
'We'd love to be together more as a family, but we just can't afford to,' Bryant-Rizzieri said."
Similarly, preschool costs can be expensive, sometimes even more so than day-care. Consider the most expensive preschool in the nation: Ethical Culture Fieldston School with an annual tuition of…brace yourself…it's more than some college tuitions…$30,400. (At least it includes meals).
While offering child-care loans may be smart, it is also crazy-sad that costs are so high. Not just in New York but all across the country. Tot school tuition can account for up to one-third of family's annual income. Add in mortgage or rent payments and rising health care costs and there often is little left for necessities such as food and electricity.
And for many families with young kids, both parents need to work just to keep the household financially afloat.
Again, I say the whole child-care situation in the U.S. is crazy-sad.
For more on child-care and the overall high costs associated with parenthood, check out Time magazine's piece on childless adults and The New York Times on mothers who regret ditching careers to stay home with the kids.
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
