Single parents face $1,000+/week childcare costs with no court accommodation

Courts prohibit children in the courtroom and provide zero childcare facilities, yet most jurisdictions deny childcare burden as grounds for hardship exemption. A single parent or stay-at-home caregiver summoned for jury duty must arrange and pay for full-time childcare — typically $250-$350/week for one child — while receiving only $15-$50/day in juror fees. For a two-week trial with two children, out-of-pocket childcare costs can exceed $1,400 while juror compensation totals $150-$500. In California, caregivers can only claim hardship if they prove that no comparable care is economically feasible and it would create 'great financial hardship,' a standard that courts interpret narrowly. Many parents report having hardship requests denied and being told that childcare is not a valid excuse. The practical effect is that primary caregivers — disproportionately women — either serve at enormous personal cost, risk contempt charges for non-appearance (fines of $250-$1,500 and potential bench warrants), or are filtered out of jury pools entirely, reducing gender diversity on juries. This persists because courthouse infrastructure was designed around the assumption that jurors have a stay-at-home spouse, and retrofitting courthouses with childcare facilities would require capital investment that no court administrator has budget authority to approve.