Does the actual market reflect that potentially happening, or is it blown-out-of-proportion hypothesis? Can you ever truly envision the economy collapsing because child care prices rose? I can't.
The article said "ripple effect." I can envision rising child care costs having a ripple effect. For example, more caregivers choosing to stay home rather than pay for day care. We just saw the opposite ripple effect with a record high percentage of women participating in the work force. Seems entirely plausible it could work the other way too.
That said, hot take financial news is less than useless for making financial decisions.
This bolded part is the point.
Apart from that, nearly anything and everything can cause a ripple effect. But how big of a ripple? How far will it spread? How long will it last? Is it avoidable? Childcare was never an issue before? Inflation was never an issue before? Unaffordable housing was never an issue before? The shortage of certain life-sustaining medications was never an issue before?
Literally everything in our lives has been twisted sideways, upwards, and pounded into the ground in the last 4 years because of a pandemic. The majority of things which were already a potential threat are now larger threats.
I'd say the non-stop war, neverending division among society, horrible educational standards, foolish and unnecessary papers being created by lawmakers, an out of control money printer, the fact that the survival of our currency literally depends on the issuance of debt, and much much more to be very noteworthy.
I literally laughed out loud when I read the thing about child care. Not because I don't think the prices are insane, but because they chose to publish it, and because they insist that it's a threat, which in the end turned out to be nothing more than a possible ripple effect... which when translated into the size of the real world of finance means the same sized ripple created from a fart while standing in the ocean. Hardly an economy-killer.