Q & A with  Economist Betsey Stevenson. The economic toll of the collapse of the child system will be felt for 20-30 years, says Betsey Stevenson. 

By Zack Stanton @ Politico Magazine, July 23

[....] Parents are exhausted from constant, round-the-clock care while trying to work from home; some have chosen to leave their jobs, or switch to part-time work, just to take care of their kids. And kids themselves are slipping behind academically. Now comes the bad news: We haven’t seen the worst of it yet [....]

And for anyone hoping a vaccine will allow a quick, healthy reopening sometime next year, she says: Don’t count on it. “We are letting the whole child care system erode in such a way that it’s not going to be there for us when we are fully ready to go back. You’re seeing child care centers that can’t stay in business. They can’t figure out how to reopen. They can’t keep their employees on staff. They’re letting people go,” Stevenson says.

“Once we are ready to have all the jobs come back and we’re really ready to recover, even though we’ll have opened the schools, opened the child care centers, the workers aren’t going to be there, the slots aren’t going to be there.”

What can we do to avoid that outcome? On Wednesday, Stevenson spoke to POLITICO about all that and more. A transcript of the conversation is below, edited for length and clarity.

Zack Stanton: Let’s start here: Are we in a child care crisis as a country?

Betsey Stevenson: I actually think we’ve been in a child care crisis for a long time. The pandemic has just pulled the lid off it, so we’re all staring at that crisis right now. And, of course, it is exacerbated and much worse in the current period for two reasons [....]