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Warfare in the Mideast, stirrings in Latin America, rising food prices -- and the major issue of the 1988 campaign is daycare for children.
George Bush proposes tax credits, Michael Dukakis favors direct subsidies, and you often read about health hazards and alleged satanism at daycare facilities. Soon daycare will be featured on prime-time specials and newsweekly covers. Why?
The obvious answer is that the traditional concept of the American family -- Dad goes off to work while Mom stays home with the kids -- bears little relationship to contemporary reality. Only 13 percent of American households fit that pattern. In 28 percent, Dad isn't there at all, and in 59 percent, both parents work.
It's understandable why single mothers work, but why are so many married women in the labor force? You sometimes read about how fulfilling and ennobling an outside job can be -- but there aren't many glamorous and exciting careers. Most working women I know have low-paying, tedious jobs whose drudgery easily exceeds anything that housework might offer.
They freely admit that they're working for the money, such as it us; their families can't get by without their income. Why does it now require two wage-earners to support a majority of families?
The answer might lie in housing prices, and in a fair credit law which was supposed to benefit families.
For a house bought in 1970, the average monthly payment was $181. The average working male made $775 a month then, so the house payment was 23.3 percent of his income. Lenders like it when your house payment comes to less than 25 percent of your income. Back then, the majority of couples could keep a roof over their heads, even though only the man held a job.
The number to consider is the average monthly payment for a home bought in a given year, as a percentage of the average monthly income for a working male. This climbed from 23.3 percent in 1970 to 27.7 percent in 1976. Then it soared, clear up to 48.9 percent in 1981. It has eased back to about 40 percent now -- but the clear fact is, most couples cannot afford to buy home on just what the man earns.
Why did house prices go up so much faster than wages after 1976? In that year, Congress passed the Fair Credit Law. Among other things, it required lenders to consider both incomes when determining a couple's borrowing capacity.
The price of residential property is purely a function of the market; a house is worth what someone is willing to pay for it.
Two-income families who bought homes in the late 1970's could borrow more, since both incomes had to be considered. Since they could borrow more, they were willing to pay more. The more they paid, the more that all housing prices went up; the median home price went from $39,162 in 1976 to $66,782 in 1981.
But single-income families had to pay those same inflated housing costs. Generally, they couldn't -- not until the woman got a job outside the home. The woman was forced to find a job, even if she would have preferred to stay home and raise children -- after all, no daycare provider, no matter how skilled or qualified, is going to care as much about your children as you do.
The resulting complications have become so widespread that even presidential candidates have noticed.
One simple solution is for wages to rise high enough so that couples can afford homes, even if one parent devotes a decent amount of time to the next generation. But the idea of a living wage is probably seditious, and even if it isn't, this easy answer it not something that Dukakis, who cannot afford to alienate the feminists, or Bush, who must keep his business support, would feel comfortable with. They'll settle for daycare.
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