After 28-year-old Lino Paredes works his 11pm to 7am “graveyard shift” at the Wynn casino in Las Vegas, he rushes home to take his four-year-old son to daycare.
His wife works 9am to 5pm, so the couple pays $85 a day, or about 40 per cent of Paredes’s daily wage, so that he can get some sleep to be ready for his next shift.
Childcare costs in Nevada, a crucial swing state that could decide this year’s US presidential election, soak up a bigger share of household income than in any other state.
But voters are feeling the pain nationally, too, creating another potential headwind for Kamala Harris’s White House run unless she can offer a plan to bring costs down.
“I want the best for my kid so if someone can make childcare more affordable, that would be great,” Paredes said. “There’s a lot of us who need help.”
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Harris has proposed more tax breaks for families with children and more affordable care for the elderly, among other ideas such as credits for first-time homebuyers, offering a sharp contrast with Trump's plan to slash taxes.