Childcare under 5 is a strange segment of the economy.

40% is done by relatives (stay at home parent, siblings, grandparent)

33% in paid nonrelative childcare

And almost 40% of kids lack a regular arrangement.

(There’s overlap.)

Separately from shelter-in-place & COVID, its hard to grok the economics of childcare: demand is super variably elastic or inelastic, depending on the parents.

I equally hear: “whatever’s cheap and convenient” and “whatever’s best, and the more expensive the better”

Grandparents doing childcare represents a *large* segment. Some data estimates up to 25% of kids under 5...!!

With shelter-in-place, this is a silent crisis of enormous magnitude, presenting impossible choices for people who want to comply with distancing, but need to work.

I’m *very* interested in a universal childcare plan. Make it a public good. Or at least provide a public option. Because this market was broken pre-COVID. Today, it’s an emergency.

(Notes: this in the . Source data: https://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p70-135.pdf)