Where’s the Media Compassion for Struggling Families?

We get it; the economy is inconveniently terrible. Scolding the working class doesn’t help.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.

Now Independence Day is long gone, summer seems more over than just begun. The days are already getting shorter, if no cooler.

Summer can be a challenging time for families with school-age children, no more so than when it’s winding down at last. For low-income families stretched paper thin paycheck to paycheck, summertime can be a major financial burden.

Childcare, in case anyone is still counting, is still just as astronomically expensive as it has ever been- and like everything else, even more so these days. A struggling single mother might make an entire mortgage payment for what she might shell out for childcare in a month.

The day the kids are old enough to be enrolled in public school is a day of great financial windfall for most working-class families. It’s better than a winning lotto ticket. Public school is infinitely less expensive than the babysitter. Throw in hot school lunches at a reduced rate, good-start breakfast programs, a first-class education, and tax dollar for tax dollar U.S. public schools are a low-income parent’s best friend.

At least, they were.