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44 Hardships in America
cases include a working mother; today, children are as likely to live with a
working mother as they are to live with a working father (Hartmann 2001). The
unemployment compensation system excludes many part-time workers, such
as those with child-rearing responsibilities, because they don’t earn enough
working part-time to become eligible for unemployment insurance. The U.S.
lacks a comprehensive system of paid leave for new parents, which means
significant income losses for families with young children. Decades after women
entered the workforce in great numbers, the nation still lacks a child care system
that meets the needs of working parents. Finally, the nation still relies on private
employers to provide health insurance for all but the very indigent, leaving 44
million Americans uninsured every year (Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and
the Uninsured 2000).
This lack of a social safety net puts basic items such as health care, child
care, paid time off work for family needs, housing, transportation, and food out
for reach for many families. For example:
· Health care. As the hardships indicators here show, families without health
insurance are vulnerable not only to health-related hardships but to hardships
in the areas of food and housing as well. Health insurance in the U.S. is primarily
provided through employers. However, 37% of workers do not have health
insurance through their employers (Mishel, Bernstein, and Schmitt 2001). Lack
of employer-provided health insurance is even more severe for low-wage
workers; in 1998, only 30% of workers in the lowest wage fifth had employerprovided
insurance, compared to 82% of workers in the highest fifth (Mishel,
Bernstein, and Schmitt 2001). Even if low-wage workers are offered employersponsored
health insurance, their plans often include higher co-payments and
deductibles and are more likely to require sizable employee contributions for
premiums for family coverage (Agency for Health Care Policy and Research
1997). If a working-poor family is not offered employer-based health care or
cannot afford the plan offered, in most cases it cannot rely on government
assistance for health coverage. In the typical state, a parent in a family of three
earning over $7,992 (59% of the poverty line) is not eligible for Medicaid
coverage (Guyer and Mann 1999). According to the family budget research
here, a non-group health insurance plan for a two-parent, two-child family would
cost an average of $350 a month.
·· Child care. Families at all income levels experience difficulties in affording
quality child care, primarily due to its high cost. As a Children’s Defense Fund
study shows, in all but one state the average cost of child care in a child care
center is more than the annual cost of tuition at a public college (Schulman 2000),
putting quality child care out of the reach of many families. A single-parent family
in Hartford, Conn. living at the basic family budget level would need to spend
31% of its income to afford quality child care for two children under 8. Currently,
federal and state programs reach few families with child care needs; tax credits
are too low to help families with child care costs, Head Start serves less than half