54% of parents expect to lose money when kids start school: RPT

Yahoo Finance’s Kristin Myers joins Julia La Roche to break down the struggles parents anticipate facing this back-to-school season, as the coronavirus pandemic continues.

Video Transcript

JULIA LA ROCHE: All right, well, speaking of back-to-school season, a new study shows that 54% of parents expect to lose income this back-to-school season. That's according to a survey from Debt.com. Kristin Myers has more. Kristin, what can you tell us about this survey?

KRISTIN MYERS: Hey, Julia. So, as we've been talking, a lot of people are asking what is going to happen in the fall as the coronavirus pandemic continues to drag on? And you were, obviously, just mentioning that a lot of school is being done remotely. I know we were chatting in the break. You are a professor and you are doing your classes remotely.

But, unfortunately, for a lot of parents, that is actually not going to be an option. They're going to be sending their kids back to school. But for the ones that are going to be keeping their kids at home, there is going to be a huge impact to their income.

So just to run through some of the numbers, then I'm going to highlight that headline number again that you've already shared-- about 65% of the parents that were surveyed in this Debt.com survey said that children, from elementary through high school students, they're going to have to have at least one parent remaining at home with them. So, obviously, that's going to be impacting their career, their ability to go back to work. Now less than 4% are going to be using daycare. That's if they have an option available for them.

So just look at the flip side-- 96% of students, of children that could go to daycare are actually going to be staying at home. Now when it comes to the account of parents that are actually worried about coronavirus impacting their children, only-- less than 9 and 1/2%-- that's less than one in 10%-- say that they're actually not worried at all about their children's health in order for them to go back to school, while 50% say they are very worried. And I only mention that because that means most parents are going to, if they have the option, to keep their children at home.

And as you can expect, this is going to have a huge impact on their earnings. 54% of parents expect to lose-- and this is a really big number, Julia-- anywhere from 11% to over 51% of their household income. That is a huge ding on any family, especially as this coronavirus pandemic continues to drag on and causes worsening financial conditions for American families. To lose as much as over half your income is a huge financial ding, I would say, to any parent or to any household.

And it's part of the reason that so many politicians are going out there and saying listen, we actually need to send children back to work. The economy, even if reopened, cannot be fully jumpstarted if parents have to stay at home with their kids and lose, again, half of their income. So pretty worrying statistics, Julia, and, I guess, just a hint possibly of what is to come in just a couple of weeks.

It's mid-August right now. So back-to-school season is just around the corner, if it hasn't already started for some folks and for some students in some states. So potentially very worrying numbers and figures that are going to be coming out in September and October.