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MARK AUSTIN THOMAS: About 12 percent of Americans live below the poverty line, so a lot of struggling parents are tag-teaming. That means dad works days then watches the kids while mom punches the clock on the graveyard shift. From the Work and Family Desk, Nancy Marshall Genzer explains.

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NANCY MARSHALL GENZER: Economist Heather Boushey of the Center for Economic and Policy Research coined the tag-team term.

She says the number of tag teaming parents is on the rise. Their expenses have gone up faster than their paychecks, and they can't afford daycare.

Washington DC restaurant workers Gerry and Fatima Gebri started tag-teaming more than a year ago. Gerry Gebri says they have no choice.

GERRY GEBRI: It's too expensive to live. You cannot clap with one hand. You have to clap with two hands.

Some economists say parents tag-team because they want to watch their kids themselves, not because they can't afford daycare.

But Economist Boushey says if that were true, high-income couples would also be playing tag, and they're not.

In Washington, I'm Nancy Marshall Genzer for Marketplace.