New Orleans-based data reporter Sharon Luyre analyzed hard-to-use Census microdata to show the crisis is uniquely devastating to moms without college degrees. For those women, a day without work is often a day without pay, so every child care disruption is debilitating — and routine, in the country’s hobbled care economy.
The education team partnered with six other local and nonprofit newsrooms to report the story. Washington, D.C.-based early education reporter Moriah Balingit expertly wove together powerful feeds of mothers whose careers have been upended by the broken child care system.
A week before the story published, AP shared its exclusive data analysis with 30 more newsrooms in states that stood out in the analysis. About a dozen of those newsrooms ran AP’s story and some later produced their own using AP’s guidance and data. More are in the works.