The recent Star Tribune article titled “Remote policies helped women work. In-office mandates and child care costs are driving them back out” (StarTribune.com, Sept. 13) highlighted an important issue but may have missed the forest for the trees. While return-to-office policies are front and center, the bigger problem is buried in your headline: Minnesota’s staggering $22,569 annual day care costs for infants. For some parents, we’re literally talking about a second mortgage. Except instead of owning property somewhere warm with no income tax, they get runny noses and ear infections.
Employers aren’t wrong to want people back. Collaboration, mentorship and company culture thrive in person. Beyond that, employees are free to choose which companies they work for. Families, understandably, feel squeezed when flexibility is reduced. But it isn’t the office that makes work impossible, it’s the price tag on care.
If quality day care cost, say, $10,000 annually instead of over $20,000, would mandates force the same exodus? Parents could afford reliable care and maintain their careers regardless of commute requirements. Of course, some parents may discover they prefer more time at home regardless of costs, and that’s a valid choice, too.
CEOs deserve blame for a lot of things. That is, after all, why they get paid millions of dollars. But I don’t think child care costs are on that list. Instead, shouldn’t we be demanding our leaders address why Minnesota families pay more for infant care than college tuition? That’s the real systemic problem undermining working parents and our state’s reputation as a great place to raise a family.
I have been retired for 10 years from a career as a department manager at a medium-size suburban public library in Illinois. I interviewed candidates, mostly women with master’s degrees, for positions in the adult reference department. Even in those years, it was clear that women returning to work after years at home with children were at a disadvantage. In the library, priorities had changed, the work had changed, training was different and technology was different even from five years prior. What was true then is no doubt still true today. That is why the need for help for families to pay for child care should be a priority.
The U.S. is behind the curve in providing funding for top-notch care for children by high-quality organizations and staff. Some European societies have made this commitment to families and the care provided totally changes society for the better. Children benefit, families benefit and society benefits.
As the reporter wrote, the economy loses out when skilled and essential employees are forced to stay home or cannot work the hours they could if child care were not a financial burden. My daughter is a doctor just beginning her career and her family, and child care was a huge part of her family budget for years. I cannot even imagine how families cope today. If we follow Minnesota’s somewhat Nordic traditions, those nations provide better care for young children with public money because it is a public good, much like good health care and good roads or transit. Minnesota taxes are high, and I would like to see money going to families in this way that benefits our whole economy.
There’s been a lot of back and forth in the Star Tribune about who has been responsible for more political violence. But there are actually numbers for this. The Cato Institute studied murders in politically motivated terrorist attacks in the U.S. going back to 1975 and attributed six times as many right-wing perpetrators as left-wing. The Anti-Defamation League surveyed extremist-related killings in the U.S. from 2015 to 2024 and found that 76% were tied to right-wing extremists, compared to 18% by Islamic extremists and 4% by left-wing extremists.
Violence is a problem across the political spectrum, but it’s not an equal one, not even close. And it’s beyond cynical for the administration and its defenders to use it as a pretext to silence criticism.
For years, conservatives have screamed about cancel culture: the public shaming of those who say things that are “deemed offensive.” Many liberals agree that some of the efforts to constrain expression were inappropriate (disrupting campus speeches, for example). Most important, the federal government hasn’t stepped in to restrict criticism of liberal sacred cows. Fox News and the Heritage Foundation have flourished without interruption.
But the shoe is now on the other foot. It began with the banning of words like diversity, equity and inclusion. Not just by public criticism, but by federal government action: firing thousands, canceling millions of dollars in funding, attempting to destroy entire institutions (including public television and radio).
Now comes an even darker development: Threats from the Federal Communications Commission have forced the removal of a comedian from the airwaves, solely because of his statements critical of the late Charlie Kirk. Kirk was well known for, among other things, his scabrous denunciation of another assassinated leader — Martin Luther King Jr. Kirk, apparently, had rights unavailable to Jimmy Kimmel.
This is not just the same shoe on a different foot. It is the jackboot of autocracy. And, for the first time in my life, I worry that merely writing these words puts me, or this newspaper, at risk. This is a dangerous moment in our history.
I live in the North Loop, and I have been reflecting on a handful of local stories relating to downtown development. I am deeply sorry to learn that the Star Tribune will be “offshoring” its printing operation to Des Moines. But that’s a done deal. I’ve been thinking about what will happen to the building, and the real estate it sits on. We all know the structural challenges that come with converting commercial or industrial space to housing, and we don’t need another sports arena or concert venue.
In a recent interview, Mayor Jacob Frey mused about a downtown playground. How about one in the North Loop? The size of the building, and the large open layout of much of the ground level, make it a good prospect for a combination of indoor activity. We have plenty of fitness centers in the neighborhood. But what if the building offered a combination of indoor golf/mini-golf, bowling lanes, tennis, trampolines, a roller rink or ice rink, etc.? It’s an active demographic here, and there’s room for parking behind the building for the destination-driven.
Several previous letter writers have pointed out that printing the Star Tribune in Iowa will not allow for coverage of any late afternoon and evening news events, as well as rendering the sports section nearly moot, since many sporting events will occur after the Star Tribune has gone to press. Many bakeries offer discounts for day-old baked goods. Will the Star Tribune be offering similar discounts for day-old “news”?