Chabeli Carrazana, The 19th

Originally published by The 19th. Subscribe to The 19th's daily newsletter.

The disparity in Biden’s White House is slightly smaller than it was in Trump’s, but women still earn less. The biggest difference, though, is in their policies.

Though pay equity has been a policy focus for President Joe Biden, he still hasn’t delivered on parity within his own White House. Women working in the White House were earning 80 cents for every $1 men earned in 2023, a gap wider than the national average, according to an analysis of the most recent data by The 19th. ...

Originally published by The 19th. Subscribe to The 19th's daily newsletter.

In 2014, states were required to begin reporting how many children die, are injured or abused in child care. Some still aren’t. For parents who have lost children, it’s proof that the system isn’t working.

Doubts swirled from the start. ...

This article was originally published by The 19th. Sign up for The 19th's daily newsletter.

In September, when billions of dollars in child care funding were about to expire, a Senate subcommittee convened to discuss solutions. It was there that Sen. John Kennedy laid out the partisan tension at the heart of what’s billed as a bipartisan issue.

He agreed that child care was an investment in the current and future workforce. Being opposed to affordable child care, the Louisiana Republican said, “is like being opposed to golden retrievers — no fair-minded person can be opposed to it.” ...

This story was originally published by The 19th. Sign up for The 19th's daily newsletter.

The violence had escalated for years before one day in October 2020, when Virginia’s husband threatened her life in front of her two children. She fled. The three of them hid in a domestic violence shelter in New York City as a global pandemic raged.

Virginia, whose full name is being withheld to protect her safety, wondered how she would care for her children. She was their sole caregiver, and most child care options had shuttered in the pandemic. Her shift at work as an ultrasound tech ran until 10 p.m. every weeknight, an hour past the shelter’s curfew. ...

This article was originally published by The 19th.

Nearly one in 4 parents reported last year being fired from their jobs due to the continuing breakdown of child care for their kids, according to a new study published Thursday. It’s just the latest statistic in a crisis that is exacting a costly toll not only on families, but also on the economy: The report puts the price tag for the lack of access to affordable child care at $122 billion in 2022 due to lost wages, productivity and tax revenue.

That figure is more than twice what it was in 2018, when ReadyNation ran a similar study surveying about 800 parents of kids under the age of 3. The study merges the survey responses with labor market data from the Bureau of Labor statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau to model the impact that the inaccessibility to child care has on the broader economy. The report was done by ReadyNation, a coalition of business leaders, and Council for a Strong America, which advocates for child care policy....