One in four parents in the United States struggled to pay for their family’s basic needs last year, a new Pew Research Center survey found.
Among low-income parents, more than half did not have enough money to pay for food or rent, or a mortgage, and more than 1 in 3 struggled to pay for health care and child care in the past 12 months. The survey, which was conducted in September and October.
Low-income parents were also more likely to report being worried about losing wages or losing their jobs if they had to lose work due to child care issues.
The survey helped reduce child poverty last year after the extended federal child tax credit expired in 2021, said Sarah Kimberlin, a researcher at Stanford University’s Center on Poverty and Inequality, who studies child welfare policies.
“We can expect an increase in the number of families with children struggling to afford things like food and rent and mortgages and basic needs like that because we’ve seen some of those supports go away,” she said.
The survey is part of a broader, new project by Pew researchers that asks parents about their concerns about raising children, said Juliana Horowitz, assistant director of research at the Pew Research Center.
“Parents across income groups have a lot of concerns about their children, of course,” she said. “But it’s an added challenge with low-income parents struggling to provide basic needs for their families.”
Racial disparities in purchasing food, housing
Among parents at all income levels, black and Hispanic parents were “particularly likely” to say they couldn’t afford food and housing, the researchers found.
“This is consistent with what we’ve seen both in other research and in other research about financial challenges and financial stress in general,” Horowitz said.
When broken down by race, 34% of black parents said there was a time they couldn’t pay for food in the past year, and 39% struggled to pay the rent or mortgage. Among Hispanic parents, 31% said they struggled to afford food and 32% struggled with housing costs.
1 in 5 white parents said they struggled to pay for food and housing in the past year. Slightly fewer Asian parents reported struggling to pay the same costs, but the Pew Research Center noted that “estimates for Asian adults are only representative of English speakers.”
The findings reflect how, on average, black and Hispanic workers receive lower wages than other racial groups because of longstanding barriers and racist policies, Kimberlin said.
Low-income parents struggle to afford health care, child care
Nearly a quarter of parents said they didn’t have enough money to pay for medical expenses or health care their families needed, and 1 in 5 said there was a time in the past year when they couldn’t pay for child care.
The number of low-income parents was even higher, with 37% of respondents saying they could not pay for medical expenses or health care, and 38% saying they could not pay for child care.
In many cases, a parent’s ability to pay for the basics of food and rent depends heavily on having someone else care for their child, Horowitz said.
“For parents working with young children who can’t be home alone or aren’t in school yet being able to do this is a very important need for parents,” she said.
Parents worry most about staying home with sick children
During the pandemic, Horowitz said, working parents are weighing heavily on caring for sick children or closing childcare due to quarantine regulations.
Among all working parents, 19% said they would be “very” or “very” concerned about losing income to care for children at home.
Almost 1 in 10 of all parents surveyed said they were worried about being fired for staying at home to care for children.
“We thought that was a remarkable number,” Horowitz said. “We’re not talking about taking long vacations, we’re just talking about normal day-to-day disruptions that you might experience as a working parent.”
The numbers were significantly higher for low-income parents; 45% worry about losing pay and 22% about losing their job.
The lack of sick days among low-income workers means “if they quit, they lose pay,” Horowitz said.
Meanwhile, most middle- and high-income parents said they were not “very” worried or “not at all worried” about losing their jobs if they stayed home to care for sick children because of childcare issues.