All Articles Tagged "child care"
Bringing Up Baby: A Look At the Most Expensive States for Raising Children
Image: iStockphoto
Did you know the average cost of raising a child in America is $234,900? According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), it takes that amount to provide food, shelter and other necessities to a child for 17 years.
Breaking it down, this amounts to between $12,290 and $14,320 annually (depending on the age of child) for a two-parent, middle-class household. The costs can go down or up depending upon where you live. It is most expensive in the Northeast.
The 2012 report “Parents and the High Cost of Child Care” from Child Care Aware of America has listed the top 10 most expensive places to raise an infant (based on the percentage of income). The results factor in the average annual cost of infant care and the state median income for both single-parent families and two-parent families, writes CNBC.com.Your home state not on the list? You can also figure out the cost where you live using the USDA’s “Cost of Raising a Child” calculator on their website. Here are the top five. Note the lack of overlap between the most expensive places to raise a child and the best places to get a raise.
1. New York: Average Annual Cost of Infant Care: $14,009
Cost of care as a Percentage of State Median Income for a Two-Parent Family: 15.9%
Cost of Care as a Percentage of Median Income for a Single-Parent Family: 54.2%
2. Minnesota: Average Annual Cost of Infant Care: $13,579
Cost of care as a Percentage of State Median Income for a Two-Parent Family: 15.6%
Cost of Care as a Percentage of Median Income for a Single-Parent Family: 52.0%
3. Oregon: Average Annual Cost of Infant Care: $11,079
Cost of care as a Percentage of State Median Income for a Two-Parent Family: 15.4%
Cost of Care as a Percentage of Median Income for a Single-Parent Family: 49.8%
4. Colorado: Average Annual Cost of Infant Care: $12,621
Cost of care as a Percentage of State Median Income for a Two-Parent Family: 15.2%
Cost of Care as a Percentage of Median Income for a Single-Parent Family: 47.9%
5. Hawaii: Average Annual Cost of Infant Care: $12,876
Cost of care as a Percentage of State Median Income for a Two-Parent Family: 14.7%
Cost of Care as a Percentage of Median Income for a Single-Parent Family: 43.7%
3 Tips for Finding the Best Daycare for Your Child
Source: Hello Beautiful
Are you the new kid on the block when it comes to finding the right daycare for your child? This is a very hard decision to make for new parents.
Honestly before I provide some great resources to help you in this process I have to vent about my frustration about American policies on maternity leave. Here is a recent excerpt from Catalyst.org about family leave:
” The United States is one of the few industrialized nations that does not provide paid family leave for new parents. Some parents can take time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which guarantees eligible employees at companies with more than 50 employees 12 weeks of unpaid, job-guaranteed leave for the birth of a child or care of a newborn, adoption of a child, to care for an immediate family member with a serious health condition, or to take medical leave for a serious health condition. Although some individual companies offer a paid maternity leave benefit, many parents end up using a combination of short-term disability, sick leave, vacation, personal days, and unpaid family leave.”
Find out what you need to be looking for when you send your child out of the house at HelloBeautiful.com.
More on Madame Noire!
- It’s The Most Ratchet Time of the Year: The Ugliest Prom Dresses of All Time
- Wonder What It Was Like To Date A Young Obama? 2 Ex-Girlfriends Reveal All
- Gucci This, Louis That: 7 Signs That You’re “Bougie”
- Don’t Play With Me: 6 Things You Don’t Joke About With Black Women
- Ask a Very Smart Brotha Live : Ready for Kids & Clingy Types
- Behind the Music: 7 Celeb Stories VH1 Needs To Get On Now
- Patience is a Virtue: An Open Letter To My Future Husband
Budget Plan Protects Day-Care Slots
(Wall Street Journal) — After proposing to slash more than 16,000 government-funded child-care slots, Mayor Michael Bloomberg will release a new budget proposal Friday reversing those plans. The mayor is also expected to show that the city anticipates business-tax revenue in the next fiscal year to exceed levels prior to the global financial meltdown. But parents and educators hoping for good news on plans to lay off thousands of teachers may be disappointed: The new budget proposal is essentially the same on that front as a preliminary proposal the mayor released in February, a person familiar with the matter said Thursday. The mayor’s presentation comes one day later than expected because of President Barack Obama’s trip Thursday to the site of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks. The final budget, due June 30, must be negotiated with the City Council.
Ask Felicia Joy: How to Find Grants For Your Business
Dear Felicia,
I am interested in starting a day care center in Atlanta, Georgia. I am in school now for day care management, and I have over seven years of experience in the field. Where do I go to find grants to help me?
Ms. Q. Rucker-Woods
via email
Dear Ms. Rucker-Woods,
You can find legitimate federal government grant opportunities online at http://www.grants.gov, which is the U.S. government’s portal for announcing competitive grant projects. Since you are planning to open a daycare, the Administration for Children & Families under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is the agency most likely to announce grant opportunities that you might be eligible for once your childcare center is open. You may want to join their e-mail list to keep up with news and announcements from their agency. For example, in 2010 they offered a competitive grant opportunity to boost the success of Head Start, an early childhood education program1.
Now that I have addressed your core question, I want to take this a step further and point out a few things because there is a lot of misinformation about grants.
People typically think of grants as free money to pursue their interests or business ideas. It is free money, but not really. Government grants will typically go to non-profits. They will also often require that you have matching dollars and an evidence-based plan for sustaining the program that those federal grant dollars help you create. To meet these criteria, you have to already have funding and documented results at your up-and-running organization.
Also, grants aren’t available for general business use. They have to be used for very specific projects and outcomes that the government wants to achieve. To compete for grant dollars, organizations have to submit a detailed plan that shows how their program, staff and skill sets can contribute to the overall objective. If an organization is awarded a grant, it has to submit detailed reports and keep up with a lot of compliance paperwork too. Because the government realizes that the compliance requirements could be burdensome to a small, individual organization, it often provides the grant monies to state and local governments and leaves it to them to disburse the grants further, hold grantees accountable and provide technical assistance. In the end, this means smaller grants for the organizations that are fortunate and skilled enough to get them.
If you are seeking grants to start your business, you are better off seeking an SBA-backed small business loan. There are several things in your favor. You have work experience in the child care industry, and you are pursuing an educational program that will further equip you with the skills to succeed. In addition, successful childcare businesses have an average profit margin of 39.1 percent—not the highest in the profit margin pecking order, but not the lowest.
Since you are still in school and know that daycare ownership is your goal, prepare yourself further with these steps:
1. Pull your credit record and make sure there are no errors.
2. Establish a relationship with a small business loan officer at a local bank that makes SBA-backed loans.2 Find out from this person what a dream file would look like and prepare yourself to present that dream file.
3. Consider alternative lending sources like Prosper.com.
4. Write a business plan; the process won’t guarantee your success but it will clarify your ideas.
5. Identify two or three successful daycare owners in other cities (so they won’t see you as competition) and interview them. Ask them about their ups and downs in that business and their advice for you. Do this after you’ve done the research for your business plan. Be prepared with solid questions, offer them lunch, wrap up in the time that you said you would and send them a handwritten note within a day of meeting with them.
Good luck!
Grace & Peace,
Felicia Joy
1 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – Administration for Children & Families
Felicia Joy is a nationally recognized entrepreneur who created $50 million in value for the various organizations and companies she served in corporate America before launching her business enterprise. She is often called on to discuss the ins and outs of entrepreneurial success and has appeared on CNN, FOX and in other national press. Felicia operates Ms. CEO Inc., a company that helps women entrepreneurs achieve more success, faster — as well as Joy Group International, LLC, a business development and consulting firm. Send her your questions at ask@feliciajoy.biz or www.twitter.com/feliciajoy.
A Boon for Nannies, if Only They Knew
(New York Times) — Patricia Francois prowled the American Museum of Natural History on a recent afternoon, looking for nannies. She spotted two, with their charges, sitting in the inky gloaming beneath the famous blue whale, and zeroed in. Ms. Francois, an organizer for the advocacy group Domestic Workers United, asked the women if they were familiar with the state’s new Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, better known as the “nanny law.” The two nannies, both from the West Indies, shook their heads. “We have to stick together,” urged Ms. Francois, a Trinidadian, handing them pamphlets describing the measure. “What we have is people power.” More than seven months after the bill was signed into law with some fanfare, most domestic workers and their employers seem unaware of it, and its impact on the often-fluid business arrangements between the two groups appears to have been negligible, say nannies, labor advocates, state officials and others. The law is the only one in the nation to offer specific protections for domestic workers, including nannies, housekeepers and caregivers for the elderly. The result of years of ardent advocacy and political wrangling, it allows temporary disability benefits for full-time home workers, and provides redress for workplace sexual harassment and discrimination.
Deal: Pre-K Back to Full Time
(AJC) — Gov. Nathan Deal abandoned plans Monday to take Georgia pre-kindergarten from a full- to a part-time program after an outcry from parents, teachers and child advocates. Instead, Deal said, the pre-k school year will be shortened from 180 to 160 days and will see class size increased by two students to 22 each. Both proposals will keep on track plans to reduce pre-k spending by $54 million and to increase the program’s long-term viability, the governor said. It also will allow the program to take on more children, but 2,000, not the 5,000 Deal first recommended.
“Coordinating with those closest to the work, we believe these changes will have a minimal impact in the classroom while saving the $54 million needed to place this program on solid ground as we go forward,” Deal said during a Monday news conference. Child advocates and pre-k operators hailed Deal’s decision. ”Our parents and teachers were heard by Governor Deal, and we are grateful,” said Elaine P. Draeger, president and chief executive officer of the Sheltering Arms Early Education & Family Centers.”This is definitely better for our children.”
Shortfall Hits Day Care Center
(Chicago Tribune) — A day care center set up amid the first-floor classrooms at Morton East High School allows teenage mothers and fathers to remain students while they tackle an even tougher subject: how to be young parents. Debbie Jimenez, 18, tiptoed in during school on a recent morning, prompting her 3-year-old son, Angel, to run into her hug even as he tugged at his coat hanging near the door. ”No, we’re not leaving yet, baby. I’ll be back for you later,” Jimenez said, smoothing the child’s hair before the fourth-period bell summoned her to another class.
Since it opened in 1991, the Children’s Center at Morton East has provided child care for more than 1,000 teenage parents who have gone on to earn diplomas, officials said. At least five other high schools in Cook County, as well as a handful of others across the state, offer similar programs, according to Illinois Action for Children, a non-profit that works with low-income families, including teen parents.
Economy Hits Georgia Child Care Hard; 600 Centers Forced to Shut
(Atlanta Journal Constitution) — For nearly a decade, after the economy forced her out of a corporate job, Carol Ann George-Roach took care of other people’s children. She took pride in shaping young minds and sending them off to kindergarten prepared to learn. But not even child care, George-Roach found, was exempt from Georgia’s fragile economy.
Parents Find Day Care at Libraries
(Chicago Tribune) — It was a warm and sunny day outside, but Xavier Parker, 10, was deep into a computer game at Thurgood Marshall Public Library when his father walked in and told the boy he was about to go to a store. ”Stay in here,” Xavier’s father, Jimmy Giles, said, leaving the boy in charge of his 6- and 8-year-old brothers. “Don’t go anywhere until I come back and get you.”
