We know the economics of child care are breaking down even more under the strain of this relentless recession. Over the weekend, The Oregonian ran the best story I have read about how and why child care doesn’t work in the 21st Century economy.

It is a story about two college-educated working parents who can’t afford child care for their two young children.

Set aside the misguided notion that mothers have much of a choice when it comes to working a paid job or staying at home. Not when wage and salary data, adjusted for inflation, show the typical Oregon man earning $3 less an hour in 2007 than in 1979, according to the Oregon Center for Public Policy.

Let go of the lie that Grandma lives down the street and wants to watch Junior for free. Not in a state where more than half the residents weren't born here.

No shortcuts in sight, what's left is a scramble. – Two parents, two kids...and only 24 hours a day, Oregonian newspaper, 4/18/09.

While child care is steep in neighboring Oregon, it generally costs even more in Washington state, where parents pay, on average, $10,140 a year for infant care in centers, according to the National Association of Child Care Resources and Referral Agencies.

Washington ranks as the 14th most expensive state for infant care.

That means middle class and even upper middle class families can struggle to pay for child care, not to mention families further down the economic ladder.

It is problem I’ve run across again and again in covering the finances of child care in recent years. Economists and my own experience convinced me the laws of supply and demand don’t work here.

Now families are struggling even harder with this flawed equation as they lose jobs or hours, while lawmakers consider cuts to early learning programs.

This is another unfortunate wrinkle in the massive economic contraction: more families may no longer be able to afford child care, the story suggests.

 In nearly 60 percent of two-working-parent couples with children younger than 5, at least one spouse worked some combination of weekends, evenings and nights, University of Maryland professor Harriet B. Presser found through studying Department of Labor and Census data.
Almost 40 percent of married women said child care drove the decision to work odd hours, Presser reported in her 2003 book, "Working in a 24/7 Economy."

Bobbie Weber, a researcher with Oregon State University's family policy program, says our own state's data hint at an emerging trend of low-income families increasingly avoiding paid child care.

"Some families," Weber says, "were priced out of the market. – Oregonian, 4/18.

Plus, the story is a great read. The writer beautifully carries you through the family’s day.