Child Care Crisis or Opportunity?
In a 15 May 2024 blog, Nicole Heller at the NH Fiscal Policy Institute wrote that here in New Hampshire, the average annual price for child care for two children under age five is almost $32,000.
Think about that for a moment. Yikes.
What if …
what if there were free, universal child care,
available in every community for every child?
What would that look like? What would it mean?
I am not an economist, but I can imagine the significant impact it would have on families/households, on the children, on our workforce, the economy, and on the community itself.
(Let’s assume, for the following comments, that most households are using a child care option because they need or want to work, whether one parent/partner, or two)
There are two sides to this coin: the tuition for childcare through payment by families (including the NH Child Care Scholarship Program and other assistance), and then the budgets and operations of the providers themselves – whether family-based sites or larger, center-based. Right now, funding to cover operations and related expenses relies pretty much solely on tuition.
On the payment side:
Some (households) can afford full tuition and pay it, no matter the percentage of overall income/expenses. Many cannot afford the tuition, even for part-time care, and rely on “scholarships” and other assistance to be paid to the providers to supplement what they can pay.
And for some, a parent may choose to not work at all because the cost for childcare is simply too high relative to what their income would be. Or, there may be no childcare available for the hours they would be working (nurses, for example).
On the provider side:
No one is getting rich here.
Centers (of all kinds) depend primarily on tuition to fund their operations. Staff salaries, (which, according to the NH Fiscal Policy Institute, were $15.62 an hour, or $32,490 per year in 2023), logistical requirements (eg, space, fencing, approved cribs and highchairs) and supplies all fall under this.
Note that food, baby wipes, cleaning products and more need to be replenished constantly. And what may be a “good” crib today that meets code may be no longer in compliance at some point.
Child care is a business, so bills and salaries need to be paid, as well as taxes, and there is endless paperwork, especially if state funding is involved. Center owners or directors care for the children – and then do all the administrative work that needs to be done.
Can centers be open the hours needed by families – while providing needed staff levels? If there is a snowstorm, can staff get to the site to care for the kids whose parents have to work outside of the home? What happens to a parent’s income when their child has to come home or stay home due to illness?
This is an extremely complex issue.
Last fall, as part of a project I was working on, I interviewed a dozen or so providers. Three main things struck me:
The people who do this work love it. They love their colleagues, they love the kids they care for, they love the work of being with young children.
The directors/owners love their work but many have no business background and so are learning as they go about how to think about their centers as a business and how to run them as businesses. (There are some good resources available.)
There is no child care “system,” really, in the state. Different regions might have collaboratives for support and learning, everyone has connections to Concord, but there is not unified system in place. But It’s working anyway.
So what IF we had universal child care, free to all who choose to use it? What if it were somehow tied to the local school system, and included (for those old enough) preschool, kindergarten (if not already in place) and after-school care?
What if this were considered an investment, rather than an expense?
For households:
How many could then afford to work? What would this mean for employers?
How many would be able to afford more -even basics – if 10 to 35% of their income was not going to child care? What impact would that have on our economy?
What would it mean to have a local, community child care center – for parents, for the kids, for each other? Would this be a draw for young families?
What benefits would every child then have, getting appropriate learning starting at a very early age? How would that affect education outcomes when they reach high school graduation? What are the costs now for a child who has not had that solid foundation build within the first four years of their life?
For Centers:
Staff could be part of the larger school system and be eligible for health, vacation and other benefits
Budget would still be a challenge (as are most school line items) but I should think it would be overall easier in some ways to run a center under this model.
Child care is one leg of the three-legged stool (along with places to live and transportation) that supports businesses and our economy. It’s long past time to start thinking out of the box. Ask not: what has to be “fixed”? But ask: What is possible? And then, what needs to happen to get there?
It’s certainly not up to me, but I suggest piloting this in a couple of communities, and see what we can learn. There are still many, many questions that need to be addressed (eg funding). But if a community really wants it, it can happen. It may not happen overnight, but a thoughtful plan will be key.
