Here’s a New York Times story from earlier this week about how cuts to subsidized childcare are making it impossible for single moms to hold onto jobs:

Here in Tucson — a city of roughly 500,000 people, sprawling across a parched valley dotted by cactus — Jamie Smith, a 23-year-old single mother, once had subsidized child care. That enabled her to work at Target, where she earned about $8 an hour. She paid $1.50 a day for her 3-year-old daughter, Wren, to stay at a child care center. The state picked up the rest.

She was aiming to resume college and then find a higher-paying job. But in December, she missed by a day the deadline to extend her subsidy. When she went to the state Department of Economic Security to submit new paperwork, she learned that all new applicants were landing on a waiting list.

Ms. Smith sought help from Wren’s father to look after their daughter. But he had his own job delivering pizza, limiting his availability.

“Some days, I’d just have to call in sick,” she said.

By March, she had missed so many days that Target put her on a leave of absence, telling her to come back after securing stable child care, she said.

Without the state program, she sees no viable options.

She, too, is contemplating going on welfare.

“It’s a blow to my own self-image and self-worth as a person who can take care of myself,” she says. “I’m totally able, physically and intellectually, to continue working. But I can’t work without child care, and I can’t afford child care without work.”

But remember: Republican lawmakers are pro-life and pro-family. Just don’t ask them to fund any programs that actually help low-income families get a toehold on improving their lives. That would be helping out the people that state Sen. Frank Antenori likes to refer to as the “tax-eaters.” Compassionate conservatism is sooo yesterday.

This article appears in May 27 – Jun 2, 2010.

Getting hassled by The Man Mild-mannered reporter

12 replies on “Need Child Care So You Can Hang Onto Your Job? Don’t Expect Help in Arizona”

  1. Good point.

    However,

    It is apparent that The Range is not going to make a Memorial Day address to the nation.

    The heavy lifting falls to Red Star.

    Here’s

    “Oliver with former President Nestor Kirchner discussing President Bush.”
    At:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI446mXonu0

    Of course, the above is hearsay, but on this Monday morning it’s believable. It seems to fit with the whole costly Bushistan experience. Have you looked at the USA economy lately?

    And what about those civilian guys driving trucks back and forth CONUS in 2002/2003, hauling overpriced and unnecessary junk such as beach chairs and NASCAR t-shirts, condoms, and anything Disney at what, 30 thousand a year AGI only to return home to a trailer park. No wonder they jumped at the chance in 2003 to drive trucks as civilian contractors in Bushistan’s Iraq at $100,000 a year. No matter that some of them were killed and maimed as a result. Do they get a Memorial Day?

    Do the Blackwater guys, some of whom were killed and maimed during Bushistan’s war on Iraq, get a Memorial Day?

    Hey, at least they weren’t blowing up Federal buildings…

  2. A 23 year old single mother of a 3 year old and we’re supposed to feel bad about her not having free childcare? She should have thought about needing child care before she got pregnant at 19 – or when she decided to keep the baby instead of letting a responsible, loving couple adopt it. How’s that “hope and change” working out for you now Jamie Smith?

  3. “But in December, she missed by a day the deadline to extend her subsidy”.

    Ah, Didn’t seem that important, did it? Why would anyone feel sympathetic about her own negligence?

  4. Like I said: Compassionate conservatism is sooo yesterday. I appreciate y’all proving my point.

  5. The earliest application of “sooo” Tucson Weekly Top Commenter Red Star can find in TW online archives is by Hannah Glasston in January 1995. That seems so long ago.

    This being Memorial Day and all, here’s the link:

    http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tw/01-05-95/ei…

    And when, Top Commenter, did they stop running the Indy 500 on Memorial Day? That’s easy: July 1974.

    This concludes Red Star’s Memorial Day address.

  6. Compassionate conservatism? She does not have subsidized healthcare because she did not file the paperwork on time. The program was there and she dropped the ball. The program is working for other people. Where’s the problem? What does compassion have to do with it? If her whole livelihood depended on subsidized childcare you would think that she would have put a little more priority on making sure that she made the deadline. She was not a victim of the system. She was not wronged in any way.

  7. Maybe a more appropriate headline would have been “Need Child Care So You Can Hang onto Your Job? Don’t Expect Help in Arizona if you don’t file on time and follow the rules.”

  8. Boo-friggin-Hoo. so a 2o something girl gets herself knocked up and then whines that she can’t get her paperwork in on time. Why is that my problem? she got herself into this mess, so she can deal with it. Just like all the rest of us.

  10. I agree…You people are very judgmental..sounds pretty good coming from a bunch of silver spoon fed people who have had money all your life,or family to pick up your slack….You don’t care about anyone but yourselves…and judge others less fortunate. Wow…all of you sound like our government and every other ignorant higher class citizen, that don’t care about the lower class!! You should be so proud of yourselves!! Did you have to worry about providing for a child at a young age? or just yourselves? oh…no , your the group of idiots that have your parents pay for college for you!! lol Maybe you should think before you speak. DES is not open on the weekend, jobs are usually Monday thru Friday, plus she has a child, and life happens, she is not the first case that has missed a deadline…but she was probably working. Have you ever missed an appointment? Don’t judge unless you’ve been through the same thing. Now a days, if you can stay home with your child, it is better because anything you bring home from work is going straight to child care!! That’s any age…doesn’t matter if you are 23 or 40. Child care is expensive!! Get a clue! Don’t comment on something you know nothing about..Remember one day it will all come back on you, then you will see what it’s like. Listen to Everlast…What it’s like, it might teach you something….or maybe not..You have to be open-minded to care about others.

  11. first things first is a program that will help they have scholarship if you qualify

  12. first thing first program will help with a scholarship for day care low as a 25 a week

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