am writing this article, nine months pregnant, as my 3-year-old is dancing around the room singing and my 5-year-old is trying to learn to read over Zoom. Parents across the country are attempting to work from home while homeschooling and caring for their children full time. Many families can’t afford to pay for care they’re not receiving, and in March 30% of 6,000 childcare centers surveyed said they wouldn’t survive a closure of two weeks without significant public investment. The American childcare system was already a failed market, and now COVID-19 is pushing it toward collapse.

The question of when America will go back to work has dominated the public discourse, but whenever that happens, who will watch our children?

In spite of the relatively high cost of quality care—often out of reach for working families—childcare centers operate on razor-thin profit margins and many pay their staff at or near minimum wage. More than half of childcare workers rely on public assistance for their financial survival and many can’t afford safe childcare for their own children.

The COVID-19 pandemic has both exacerbated our childcare crisis and pushed many states and municipalities to consider implementing emergency universal childcare policies to support our essential workers. Arizona announced a free childcare program for the children of first responders and essential health care and public-sector workers during the COVID-19 outbreak. Maryland and Louisiana are helping their essential workers by providing free and subsidized childcare, respectively.