Harriet Torrey
Appearances
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
For decades, there have been attempts to change the way childcare works in the U.S. Activists have called for reforms, and there have been bills introduced in Congress. But it's still really hard to find affordable childcare. So more recently, some community groups and lawmakers have taken the fight to the state and local level.
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
In this year's election, several places around the country have childcare measures on the ballot. And one of those places is in Texas.
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Friday, November 1st. Coming up on the show, what subsidized childcare could mean for one county in Texas. For many families, the high cost of childcare can seem like a problem they have to solve on their own. Will they burn through their savings? Will a parent have to stop working?
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
But our colleague Harriet says that there's a bigger economic issue going on.
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
daycare is so high right now that me and my husband had to make the decision to take my son out of daycare for the summer if you add in my third it's going to come to about 6800 a month for daycare that's only from nine to two a day i need the freaking raise and a big one to be able to afford this how would you describe the state of early child care in the u.s right now
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
What is the average cost of childcare for families for one child here in the U.S. ?
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
Harriet spoke to families about the issue in Travis County, Texas, where a child care measure is on the ballot. Travis County includes most of the city of Austin.
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
To find out more about why that daycare bill can be so high, we talked to Jordan McClay. She's the director of the Ebenezer Child Development Center in Austin, which primarily serves lower-income families. The other day, Jordan was in a classroom hearing from the toddlers about their Halloween costumes.
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
Daycares like Jordan's typically serve children from the time they're infants until they're about four years old when they start kindergarten. And like a lot of daycares across the country, Ebenezer Child Development Center is wrestling with the economics of the childcare market. The center charges around $1,000 a month for each child.
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
With just 23 kids enrolled, Jordan says there's not a lot to work with. What are you spending money on primarily?
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
In a typical business, in order to increase revenue, a business owner might cut back on expenses or raise prices. Jordan can't do either of those things. She can't trim staff, her primary expense, because there are regulations about the ratio of adults to children in a daycare. In Texas, for instance, there's got to be at least one caregiver for every four infants.
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
At the same time, Jordan can't raise her prices because parents are already struggling to pay the tuition.
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
And you can't charge any less at this point, right? Much less increase the tuition to help you pay for what you need to pay for to keep the place running.
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
On top of all this, it's hard to attract people for child care jobs. It's a demanding role that doesn't pay a lot. The average nationwide wage for child care workers is less than $15 an hour.
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
And so Jordan's in a catch-22. There's a huge demand from families for affordable care, but she can't afford the staff to meet that demand. Harriet has seen this scenario play out over and over in her reporting. So based on what you've seen, what you've reported on, what do families do when they aren't able to get childcare? What happens?
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
Here in the U.S., if you have children, or even if you don't, you probably know that daycare is really expensive.
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
Why does it matter that the labor force supply is reduced? What is sort of the overarching effect that we'd see?
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
The result is a nationwide childcare crisis. And in Travis County, it's led to a ballot measure that would raise property taxes to subsidize childcare. How that would work is next.
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
When Texans in Travis County go to the polls on Tuesday, they're going to see an option on the ballot about funding child care. And Central Texans are talking about the big issues on the ballot.
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
Across the state, there are almost 84,000 families waitlisted to get subsidized child care. 5,000 of those children are in Travis County. To help increase access to that funding, the county commission introduced a ballot measure called Proposition A.
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
This proposal would create 1,900 new childcare slots for babies and toddlers from low-income households. It also has the goal of raising pay and creating new positions for daycare workers. Proposition A would be funded through property taxes, an increase of about $125 a year for the average homeowner. Using property taxes for education is similar to how public schools are funded.
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
And Harriet found that Proposition A would make a big difference for daycares in the area.
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
Prop A does have some detractors. Some Republicans against the measure would rather reduce regulations on businesses than raise taxes. Here's one critic being interviewed by a local television station in Austin.
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
Opponents also say that raising property taxes could exacerbate Austin's already high housing costs. The Travis County GOP say they don't support the proposition, but they haven't mounted a formal protest against it. What's interesting to you about this effort or this ballot measure?
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
And if Proposition A passes, it'll be one of a number of similar efforts around the country. Florida this year started offering tax breaks to businesses that provide childcare for employees. Vermont created a new payroll tax to increase staffing and capacity at daycares. In Louisiana, taxes on things like gambling and cannabis are being used for early childhood education. And St.
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
Paul, Minnesota and Sonoma County, California both have measures similar to Prop A on Tuesday's ballot.
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
If it does pass, is there a chance that it could be heralding the beginning of a broader shift, whether within Texas, maybe some other cities might be interested in trying something like this out or beyond?
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
The fact that there's any kind of movement on public funding for daycare feels really significant to Jordan McClay. She's the director at Ebenezer Child Development Center.
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
That's all for today, Friday, November 1st. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. The show is made by Catherine Brewer, Jonathan Davis, Pia Gadkari, Rachel Humphries, Ryan Knutson, Matt Kwong, Kate Leinbaugh, With help from Trina Menino. Our engineers are Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapak, and Peter Leonard. Our theme music is by So Wiley.
The Journal.
Child Care Is on the Ballot in One Texas County
Additional music this week from Katherine Anderson, Griffin Tanner, Peter Leonard, Bobby Lord, Emma Munger, Nathan Singapak, and Blue Dot Sessions. Fact Checking by Mary Mathis. Thanks for listening. See you on Monday.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Economy Shrank as Trade Turmoil Began to Hit
Well, the data is a little bit old at this point because it looks at the period from January, February, March. And of course, now we're almost in May and April was a huge month because that was the month that we saw the Liberation Day announcements.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Economy Shrank as Trade Turmoil Began to Hit
Having said that, there was definitely some anxiety about tariffs in the first quarter as well because tariffs were beginning to be introduced pretty much as soon as the Trump administration took office. How we saw this reflected in GDP was that there was a big surge in imports in the first quarter, and that was a drag on growth.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Economy Shrank as Trade Turmoil Began to Hit
But if you look at the underlying measures of growth in the economy, when you strip out trade and inventories and government spending, which was also down because of the Doge cuts, that stayed pretty stable. So consumer spending slowed, but people did continue to spend on services and on goods. various other things.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Economy Shrank as Trade Turmoil Began to Hit
So it wasn't a dramatic weakening in underlying demand in the economy, but the headline number was, of course, very impacted by this big increase in imports. At the same time, we are in a dramatically different environment in the second quarter.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Economy Shrank as Trade Turmoil Began to Hit
Inflation was very, very weak in March, which is, of course, a good thing after so many years of rising prices. And we saw that in the CPI report from the Labour Department, as well as this report out today from Commerce. But it's unlikely that given tariffs that inflation is going to continue to cool as it has in recent months.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Economy Shrank as Trade Turmoil Began to Hit
That's because tariffs raise the cost of imported goods, and that will inevitably impact pricing for consumers at some point down the line. So We didn't see any evidence in March of this happening. In fact, spending was pretty strong in March and inflation was very moderate.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Economy Shrank as Trade Turmoil Began to Hit
We saw a big jump in spending on vehicles because people were keen to purchase new cars ahead of potential tariffs on imports.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Economy Shrank as Trade Turmoil Began to Hit
This is data for April, so it comes after the GDP report. But the labor market is definitely being eyed very, very closely because weakness in hiring is, of course, very bad for the economy because when people lose their jobs, they lose their incomes, they stop spending, and it ripples throughout the economy.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Economy Shrank as Trade Turmoil Began to Hit
So the ADP report was definitely weaker than expected, but all eyes at this point will be on the jobs report on Friday.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Fall Sharply as Global Economic Outlook Remains Uncertain
This is definitely good news for consumers because they've been hit very hard by inflation over the past few years. And of course, it's good news for the Fed as well, because the Fed has been trying for a long time to bring inflation back to 2%. However, this data is actually looking pretty stale now because tariffs have now been paused. There's been a lot going on since this report came out.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Fall Sharply as Global Economic Outlook Remains Uncertain
And to be fair, some tariffs were coming into effect in March, but that didn't really show up in the data. We saw some very slight moves around in categories that are exposed to exports like apparel, and things like that, but nothing particularly major. So it's almost like this report represents the calm before the storm.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Fall Sharply as Global Economic Outlook Remains Uncertain
Yeah, we did see some big swings in categories related to travel, such as airline fares. And economists that I spoke to did say this could be a sign that people are cancelling trips, maybe just want to stay home and see how the economy plays out.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Fall Sharply as Global Economic Outlook Remains Uncertain
So that is a sign that potentially consumers are getting a little bit edgy because often when the economy slows down, the places that people will cut their spending is in discretionary categories, things like travel and hotels.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Fall Sharply as Global Economic Outlook Remains Uncertain
This could impact service exports by just damaging the American brand. And you're seeing this around the world. There's all these people that are now basically souring on American companies because they feel the U.S. is being hostile. It's attacking their country. It's a trade war.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Fall Sharply as Global Economic Outlook Remains Uncertain
They're incredibly important. They're 80% of the U.S. economy, roughly. And the U.S. now runs a goods trade deficit, but is really a services export champion. Social networks like Facebook and Instagram, financial products, the big banks and asset managers, all those things are really successful American exports, and they're hugely important to the U.S. economy.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Fall Sharply as Global Economic Outlook Remains Uncertain
This one grain of salt, though, that you have to take with some of these export figures is that some of the services exports aren't actually all that real because there is a lot of tax avoidance stuff that's going on that kind of inflates some of these bilateral trade service numbers.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Fall Sharply as Global Economic Outlook Remains Uncertain
Yeah, it gets a little bit harder going after services, right? Because they don't go through a ports. They don't go through a customs office. So tariffs don't really work all that well. But what other countries can do if they want to go after U.S. service companies in retaliation for Trump's tariffs is you can tax them. You can fine them. You can otherwise restrict their operations.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Fall Sharply as Global Economic Outlook Remains Uncertain
And there's all these precedents for that. Like Canada, for example, has a digital services tax. And the EU is quite obviously considering something similar as well.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Fall Sharply as Global Economic Outlook Remains Uncertain
Trump's tariffs obviously aren't directly affecting the services industry because they're only on goods. But indirectly, they could very well affect the U.S. service sector and U.S. service exports in a number of ways. And the most obvious one is if this trade war leads to lower global economic growth. That's really bad for American service companies.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Fall Sharply as Global Economic Outlook Remains Uncertain
Another way in which this could impact service exports is by just damaging the American brand. And you're seeing this around the world. There's all these people that are now basically souring on American companies because they feel the U.S. is being hostile, is attacking their country through this trade war. And that makes them more reluctant to buy American services.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Fall Sharply as Global Economic Outlook Remains Uncertain
Thanks for having me.
WSJ What’s News
Most Voters Oppose Trump’s Tariffs, But His Supporters Are Still Behind Him
Yeah, it was a big surprise. Largely what happened was that we saw more jobs being created in sectors like agriculture, Healthcare, transportation, leisure and hospitality. So those really bounce back. The government layoffs, of course, were an issue for this month. But what we saw was that the layoffs were actually pretty modest. It was just 4,000 jobs.
WSJ What’s News
Most Voters Oppose Trump’s Tariffs, But His Supporters Are Still Behind Him
But one thing that is worth bearing in mind is that people who were receiving severance weren't necessarily counted as laid off. So there could perhaps be more people who are not working than expected.
WSJ What’s News
Most Voters Oppose Trump’s Tariffs, But His Supporters Are Still Behind Him
The economists who I've spoken to today have largely said that they see this as backward-looking data, which it is. This is the month of March. A lot has changed since then. And there is an expectation that this is maybe the last hurrah and that we will see weakness starting to... show through in the months ahead for a number of reasons.
WSJ What’s News
Most Voters Oppose Trump’s Tariffs, But His Supporters Are Still Behind Him
We have less immigration, so that's potentially a smaller labor force. There's federal layoffs and businesses, they're dealing with a lot of uncertainty. And a lot of economists expect that they will be certainly more cautious about hiring in the months ahead.