“Child care costs shouldn’t cost you your career.” That’s the reason Cakes Body’s co-founder Taylor Capuano announced a progressive new employee child care subsidy program that covers all child care costs for all their employees with kids under public-school age. The company, which sells women’s undergarments, recently shared their “major new initiative to support working parents.”
The company is tackling a leading obstacle for working parents—especially mothers progressing their careers in the workplace or even just being able to continue working at all after having kids. It’s a struggle Capuano knows well, as she recently told Bloomberg: Working as a senior level marketer at a small company, after paying for monthly child care expenses, she was only making around $200, which she called “kind of a wash.”
She sought to do better for her own employees of around 30 people, who now have a $36,000 benefit for child care ($3,000 monthly), which Capuano calls unprecedented in her LinkedIn announcement. “Putting this policy together opened our eyes to more questions than answers… only 3% of companies offer any kind of subsidy,” she wrote. The benefit is meant to foot the bill for two kids per employee.
A call to action for other companies
Cakes Body hopes this kind of support doesn’t stop at their own 30 employees. Instead, the subsidy is also a call to action to start a movement, and they want others to follow suit: “Match us, do better, go further… our hope is crippling child care costs will not be the reasons parents, especially women, are forced to leave the workforce,” Capuano wrote. In an Instagram post, they add they “hope it sets the new standard.” Capuano and her twin sister Casey Sarai started the shapewear company, and Sarai told Bloomberg that they’ll more than make up the cost of talent retention by offering this benefit.
The cost of losing mothers in the workforce
The U.S. Department of Labor blog points to the fact that child care costs just keep rising and are now accounting for around one-fifth of household income. They point to some expenses where, on the higher end, infant centers are charging over $19,000 per year for one child. They also discuss the direct correlation between those rising costs and decreases in working moms in the workforce. “A 10% increase in median childcare prices was associated with 1 percentage-point lower county-level maternal employment rates. Counties with childcare prices that were twice as expensive than the median childcare price had maternal employment rates that were 4 percentage points lower,” they write in another report from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau.
Child care costs are even impacting the size of families. In the Motherly Annual State of Motherhood Report, moms under 30 said that 69% of them wouldn’t be having another child, compared to 35% of millennial moms when they were asked that question in 2019. In addition, 33% say needing or wanting to work, combined with unaffordable child care, is the reason.
In addition to child care financial assistance, parents also care about other aspects of their workplace, such as having control and say in their work environment, according to Great Place to Work, which reports on companies they certify for lists including Best Workplaces for Parents. They add parents want flexibility, a place to share feedback and the ability to make a difference with meaningful work, among other benefits.
Cakes Body’s child care credit is a revolutionary benefit for parents who are balancing a career with raising children. Here’s hoping more companies follow their inspiring lead.
Photo by veryulissa/Shutterstock
