Two things grabbed my attention last week. The first was an op-ed by Bernie Sanders titled “Democrats shouldn’t focus only on abortion in the midterms. That’s a mistake.” The senator from Vermont wrote that, “while the abortion issue must remain on the front burner, it would be political malpractice for Democrats to ignore the state of the economy.”
We’ll come back to this quote in a little bit.
The second thing that caught my eye was a number from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which said there are now 100,000 fewer child-care workers than there were at the start of the pandemic. The New York Times article about the shortage outlined some of the reasons. One reason was that child-care workers, who often make less than fast-food cashiers to perform arduous jobs that we claim to value as sacrosanct, are leaving for positions that are better-paying with higher benefits and less stress.
