Matt Yglesias

Funding Child Care

Sara Mead has a post up at Early Ed Watch scrutinizing different organizations’ proposals for taking action to ameliorate the growing child care funding crisis as the recession builds. Third Way makes a special appearance — turns out that their big idea is a regressive tax cut!

Home Alone

Funny movie concept, not-so-hot social policy concept:

In the Prince George’s County community of Riverdale Park, town officials have noted a distressing sign of the national economic downturn: more children left home alone to fend for themselves by working parents too strapped to afford child care.

The problem was discovered by code enforcement officers who inspect apartments in the town of 7,000. They used to come across such cases once every couple of years. Then, six months ago, they found one child left alone, followed by another and another.

Have I mentioned that in Finland there’s a commitment to making high-quality child care services universally available and universally affordable?