The Huffington Post – Sen. Jeanne Shaheen
“Today’s 20-somethings are having fewer babies than any generation in U.S. history. One big reason is that raising children is expensive. In the Granite State, the average annual cost for an infant in a full-time child care facility is almost $12,000. For young parents struggling to make ends meet, that’s a staggering expense. Many millennials want to start a family, but they’re concerned that costs might be out of reach. Recently at the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank, I helped to launch the group’s aptly titled “Within Reach” campaign, which aims to make quality child care and pre-kindergarten affordable for today’s young parents. I raised three daughters and have seven grandchildren, so I know firsthand that working parents can be fully productive members of the workforce only when they know their children are receiving quality day care…If we expect education to be the great equalizer, then it’s not good enough to start at the college level, or the elementary and secondary levels, or even at the kindergarten level. We need to start in children’s earliest years.”(more)