were grown. “Hey, I don’t have any kids in school, so why should I pay more taxes to support education?” The answer to that question is that today’s students are the folks who might one day be the paramedic who saves your life, or the lineman who, during a severe storm, helps restore power so that you’ll have heat in your house. Funding for education is important because education benefits everyone in the long run. The same can be said of child care except that child care accrues immediate benefits to our economy.
When it comes to public and private funding for child care, there is understandable resistance from some of the 80% of North Carolinians who do not have a child under the age of 6 living at home. But these folks have no idea what child care costs these days. According to NC Child, the average annual cost of day care for an infant is $13,000, while the annual cost of daycare for a toddler is $11,500. In addition to being cost prohibitive for young parents, quality day care is not always readily available. In fact, 44% of North Carolinians live in child care deserts.
Late last year, the North Carolina Commerce Department and NC Child released a report, titled “Empowering Work”. Their findings (as reported by the Winston-Salem Journal’s Richard Craver) are alarming: fewer parents of younger children are in the workforce because of the lack of public and private support for child care assistance.
That follows a report from earlier last year by the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce Foundation which estimated that our state’s economy is losing between 5 billion and 13 billion dollars per year because people who can’t afford child care aren’t working. Proof positive is the fact that in 2023 there were 100,000 less working-age parents with young children in the state’s workforce than there were in 2019. More specifically the Foundation’s report concluded that if we got our act together and supported various working parent initiatives, then the state would gain as many as 68,000 jobs by putting those parents back into the workforce.
To their credit, some of our Democratic state legislators have tried to introduce bills that would help parents, day care operators and businesses by making child care more accessible and affordable. Unfortunately, those attempts have largely fallen on deaf ears thanks to the Republican majority in Raleigh. Those bills such as SB 822 would have increased the child tax deduction amount and provided financial assistance to child care providers. HB 322 also never received a committee hearing. It would have created a public/private partnership to share the cost of child care equally between employers, employees, and the state.
Perhaps I am naïve, but I can’t help but think that there are a number of employers who would have gone along with the aforementioned proposed legislation. For one thing, a 2024 “Employer Need Survey” found that employers’ biggest problem is lack of job applicants. Moreover, 20% of North Carolina employers attribute their hiring challenges directly to lack of access to child care.
Making child care more accessible should not be a political issue, especially when those who block progressive legislation are guilty of hypocrisy which is wrought with irony. They say they want to create jobs, but then refuse to support programs that would put over 60,000 parents back to work.
Last year, Vice President J.D. Vance indicated that parents don’t need to pay for child day care because grandparents can do the job. That math-challenged logic comes from the same man who told us that Haitians in Ohio were eating people’s pets. The fact is that not every toddler has a grandparent who lives close by or who is physically able to provide child care.
Last year NC Commerce secretary Michelle Sanders told the Journal, “Expanding access to child care is essential to developing the robust workforce that our state needs.” Here’s hoping that GOP lawmakers will wake up to that reality soon. Either that, or we’re going to have to start manufacturing more grandparents.
Our Child Care Crisis
were grown. “Hey, I don’t have any kids in school, so why should I pay more taxes to support education?” The answer to that question is that today’s students are the folks who might one day be the paramedic who saves your life, or the lineman who, during a severe storm, helps restore power so that you’ll have heat in your house. Funding for education is important because education benefits everyone in the long run. The same can be said of child care except that child care accrues immediate benefits to our economy.
When it comes to public and private funding for child care, there is understandable resistance from some of the 80% of North Carolinians who do not have a child under the age of 6 living at home. But these folks have no idea what child care costs these days. According to NC Child, the average annual cost of day care for an infant is $13,000, while the annual cost of daycare for a toddler is $11,500. In addition to being cost prohibitive for young parents, quality day care is not always readily available. In fact, 44% of North Carolinians live in child care deserts.
Late last year, the North Carolina Commerce Department and NC Child released a report, titled “Empowering Work”. Their findings (as reported by the Winston-Salem Journal’s Richard Craver) are alarming: fewer parents of younger children are in the workforce because of the lack of public and private support for child care assistance.
That follows a report from earlier last year by the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce Foundation which estimated that our state’s economy is losing between 5 billion and 13 billion dollars per year because people who can’t afford child care aren’t working. Proof positive is the fact that in 2023 there were 100,000 less working-age parents with young children in the state’s workforce than there were in 2019. More specifically the Foundation’s report concluded that if we got our act together and supported various working parent initiatives, then the state would gain as many as 68,000 jobs by putting those parents back into the workforce.
To their credit, some of our Democratic state legislators have tried to introduce bills that would help parents, day care operators and businesses by making child care more accessible and affordable. Unfortunately, those attempts have largely fallen on deaf ears thanks to the Republican majority in Raleigh. Those bills such as SB 822 would have increased the child tax deduction amount and provided financial assistance to child care providers. HB 322 also never received a committee hearing. It would have created a public/private partnership to share the cost of child care equally between employers, employees, and the state.
Perhaps I am naïve, but I can’t help but think that there are a number of employers who would have gone along with the aforementioned proposed legislation. For one thing, a 2024 “Employer Need Survey” found that employers’ biggest problem is lack of job applicants. Moreover, 20% of North Carolina employers attribute their hiring challenges directly to lack of access to child care.
Making child care more accessible should not be a political issue, especially when those who block progressive legislation are guilty of hypocrisy which is wrought with irony. They say they want to create jobs, but then refuse to support programs that would put over 60,000 parents back to work.
Last year, Vice President J.D. Vance indicated that parents don’t need to pay for child day care because grandparents can do the job. That math-challenged logic comes from the same man who told us that Haitians in Ohio were eating people’s pets. The fact is that not every toddler has a grandparent who lives close by or who is physically able to provide child care.
Last year NC Commerce secretary Michelle Sanders told the Journal, “Expanding access to child care is essential to developing the robust workforce that our state needs.” Here’s hoping that GOP lawmakers will wake up to that reality soon. Either that, or we’re going to have to start manufacturing more grandparents.