Households with Kids are Facing “Serious Financial Problems”
NATIONWIDE – American households with children are facing “serious financial problems” due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new poll.
What You Need To Know
- Poll surveyed households in July and August
- Asked families about finances during pandemic
- Those with kids reported serious financial problems
The Impact of Coronavirus on Households with Children poll released Wednesday was conducted through a partnership between the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and NPR.
It says those households have encountered depleted savings, problems paying debt, and trouble accessing affordable health care.
More than 3,400 adults were surveyed in July and August as part of the poll – 1,000 of those adults were people living with children under the age of 18.
Sixty-one percent of those surveyed said they were having some kind of serious financial problem. Those problems range from an adult losing a job or hours, to not being able to find reliable childcare options for those that are working.
People of color have already been dying of COVID-19 at disproportionately higher rates, and the new poll shows they are also taking the brunt of the financial hit.
Eighty-six percent of Latinos and 66 percent of Black households with children said they were experiencing severe financial problems. Three in four households making less than $100,000 a year reported the same problems.
Additionally, households where someone has been sick with the coronavirus and living with children report financial problems at even higher numbers – 94 percent reported a serious problem.
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“Before federal coronavirus support programs even expired, we find millions of families with very serious problems with their finances and with educating their children,” said Robert J. Blendon, co-director of the survey and Richard L. Menschel Professor of Public Health and Professor of Health Policy and Political Analysis Emeritus at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in a written statement. “Our findings suggest there could be long-term, harmful effects on the education of children if this situation doesn’t change.”
Finances weren’t the only topic of the poll; households were also asked if they had concerns about their children’s education.
One in three households with children say they are having trouble keeping their child’s education going, and one in five say they were having trouble finding childcare when they are working.
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