You worked hard, went to college or trained for a career, and landed a job in your field. You’re one of the lucky ones. And still—nearly half your paycheck goes to rent. Saving for a house feels distant. Starting a family feels financially reckless.
The instability so many people in their twenties and thirties feel isn’t accidental. It reflects decades of policy decisions about what counts as essential—and what gets treated as optional.
The data are stark. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, fewer than 1 in 4 people ages 25-34 have achieved what used to be considered four basic milestones of adulthood: moving out, working full time, marrying, and having children. Stable jobs are harder to find, housing is expensive, and social supports like affordable child care or paid family leave are limited. For many, independence and starting a family aren’t a choice—they’re a financial impossibility.
When it comes to care, the family math has grown untenable. Child Care Aware reports that the average price of child care rose 29 percent between 2020 and 2024, outpacing inflation. In 49 states and Washington, D.C., the cost of center-based care for two children exceeds median rent. In 41 states, infant care costs more than in-state college tuition. In almost all states, the cost of care for two children exceeds mortgage payments by as much as 78 percent.
During Women’s History Month, we celebrate barriers broken and progress made. It is a time to acknowledge the first woman CEO, Senator, and astronaut, and the policy milestones women have fought for to move us closer to basic fairness. And we must also reflect on the hard truths about how we got here: the history of what we deemed “essential” to a functioning society and what we relegated to the “optional.” While laws have changed, the underlying logic—that women’s economic security is negotiable—remains the silent scaffolding of our current economy.
Until the 1970s, employers could legally fire women for being pregnant. Banks routinely denied credit cards or loans to women without a husband’s signature. And for women of color, these barriers were compounded by racial discrimination in hiring, housing, and lending. We celebrate laws like the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act that pushed us further down the road toward women’s economic freedom.
Civil rights advocates, labor leaders, and women’s rights activists won those battles. But we did not fully replace the underlying logic—that women’s work is a hobby and our economic security is optional or discretionary. That logic shaped one of the most consequential—and perhaps least remembered—policy fights of the 20th century.
In 1971, Congress passed a bipartisan bill that would have created a national system of federally supported child care called the Comprehensive Child Development Act. Supporters argued that no parent should have to choose between earning a living and caring for their children. Advocates like Marian Wright Edelman saw the legislation as a crucial anti-poverty measure. Child care was a way to support low-income women who were already working and struggling to secure safe, reliable care.
President Richard Nixon vetoed the child care bill, claiming that the bill threatened the American family and was too expensive. Looking back, it’s clear that it was a political turning point, providing opponents, such as Phyllis Schlafly, with a powerful rhetorical tool: casting public child care as “underm[ining] the traditional family.”
The veto did more than block a program; it codified a governing narrative. It framed care as a private obligation rather than as shared infrastructure, even though every other part of the economy depends on it. In the decades since, we haven’t built a system; we’ve poorly managed a crisis. What emerged in the absence of universal policy is the fragmented landscape we see today: a broken child care market that pays providers too little, charges parents too much, and sustains itself on poverty wages.
Today, child care advocates often use a simple slogan: child care helps women work. It’s true—access to affordable care increases labor force participation and economic stability. But the deeper truth is that women have always worked. Low-income women, in particular, did not enter the workforce for ideological or preference-based reasons. They worked because their families depended on it. For example, Black women have long had among the highest labor force participation rates in the United States — a reflection of economic necessity and the limited access to wealth and social protections that white families often enjoyed.
The question was never whether women would work. The question was whether policymakers would acknowledge that reality and build systems to support women.
The concern about the decrease in young adults reaching the basic milestones of adulthood is not confined to one side of the political aisle. In its recent report, “Saving America by Saving the Family,” the Heritage Foundation notes that we are at a “crossroads,” noting the decrease in married households and the increase in children raised by single parents. Even from a vantage point focused on “traditional” family structures, the conclusion is similar: the current life script is no longer working.
While the diagnosis is increasingly bipartisan, the debate over the cure remains stuck in the past. As the data shows, you cannot “virtue” your way out of a family budget crisis when child care costs more than your mortgage. You cannot “personal responsibility” your way to basic family stability when 80 percent of workers face unpredictable schedules in the service sector.
But change begins when we stop treating care as a private problem and start recognizing it as public infrastructure. We are already seeing glimpses of what that shift looks like—from New York City expanding universal preschool to states like New Mexico and Washington investing major public resources in early childhood systems. We can design policies that assume women’s full economic participation: predictable work schedules, affordable and accessible child care, paid leave, and financial systems that do not hinge on dependency.
Women’s History Month reminds us that economic security is conditional. The question now is whether we are willing to raise our expectations—and build an economy that no longer treats women’s stability as optional.