(Budget cuts can lead families toward crowded, ad-hoc quality child care options)

A story in today's Newsday did a great job of illustrating how painful New York State's budget cuts are for the working poor, who depend in many cases on subsidized day care so they can hold onto their jobs.

Reporter Michael Amon found a particularly telling anecdote: a single mother who earns just $300 a week as an animal caretaker at a shelter and will no longer get assistance with the $150 in child care costs for her 6-year-old daughter. The key quote?

"It seems like it would be easier for me to just quit my job and go on welfare, because I can't afford the day care,'' a mother in the story tells Amon.

The situation Amon described is one increasing numbers of families across the U.S. are finding themselves in, as fuel and food costs rise and state budgets are slashed. While the program in Suffolk County is the only one to freeze the program as a result of $51 million in state child care fund reductions, many others across the state are being forced to make reductions.

Reporters covering early childhood issues and state budgets alike should find people to illustrate the impact of reductions and cuts on both the state and federal levels.

Such stories - especially if they come with an explanation of why cuts were made, and what the consequences are for families who seek alternative, and often substandard child care -- are important to help the public understand what happens to our youngest children during tough times.

The Patriot Ledger of Quincy earlier this year did a great job in a three-part series of explaining how and why parents make such decisions and balance finances around child care in Massachusetts -- and how and why they, and the programs they choose, often fall short.