It’s unconscionable that we still haven’t solved the child care crisis in this country.

The reality is that child care is unaffordable for too many families; some families report paying a third of their take home pay to child care. It is truly alarming that across the country, the annual price of infant child care often exceeds the annual cost of in‒state tuition at a public four‒year university.

Too many parents — mostly moms — are pushed out of the workforce due to the lack of affordable child care.

To top it off, early educators are being paid poverty-level wages and too often struggle just to support their own families. Child care workers need to be paid family-supporting wages.

If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that child care is the backbone of our economy, a public good that all of us benefit from, whether or not we have young children.

Our elected leaders cannot say they support families if they do not support investments in child care and universal pre-k. These things are not, nor have they ever been, mutually exclusive.

It’s past due that as a country we create a child care system that meets the needs of children, families, communities, and early educators.

MARY O’NEILL,

Presque Isle