Former State Representative Ruth Kagi and I wrote this post which first appeared in the Puget Sound Business Journal.
An alarming childcare crisis is impacting every community across our state. And it’s getting worse for families, childcare providers, and businesses large and small.
Over the past couple of months, we have traveled to Spokane, Moses Lake, Mt. Vernon, Yakima, Vancouver, and Aberdeen and listened to parents, childcare providers, and business owners describe this crisis. Too many parents cannot find or afford care for their children and are unable to work.
Nearly one-third of Washington working parents have at one time or another either quit their job, reduced their hours, or dropped out of school because of childcare complications.
These startling facts come from a recently released report from the state’s Department of Commerce, the Association of Washington Business, and Eastern Washington University.
Washington businesses lost an estimated $2 billion in 2017 from employee turnover because families couldn’t find or afford childcare. The impact on Washington’s overall economy was worse — a staggering $6.5 billion lost in direct costs to employers and missed consumer spending.
Quality childcare — a necessity for most working families with kids — is hard to find. But even when it can be found, childcare is cost prohibitive for our middle- and low-income families.
Take King County. Child Care Aware reports that the median annual cost for center-based infant or toddler care is just over $17,000 per child. It’s $15,000 in Snohomish County and $10,500 in Pierce County.
Government-funded childcare subsidies covering about two-thirds of the costs of care are available to some low-income families. But, in a draconian twist that boggles the mind, the co-pays for parents go up dramatically when they reach 137 percent of poverty, about $37,000 for a family of four.
Washington’s current childcare system punishes upward mobility and often forces parents to make a terrible choice between higher pay or maintaining childcare.
Childcare workers are impacted by this crisis, too. As we heard across the state, staff turnover is high and childcare centers are shutting down because the economics of these small businesses don’t work. It’s a broken market — supply is low, demand is high.
Further, the lack of high-quality childcare affordable to all families contributes to another little-known crisis. The majority of children in Washington are entering kindergarten at age 5 already behind in social-emotional, cognitive, language, literacy, math, and physical skills. When kids start behind, many stay behind.
There is a fix to this crisis if we can muster the political will.
The solution is to create a universal yet voluntary early learning system that spans the all-important prenatal to kindergarten years with high-quality childcare services for infants and toddlers, high-quality preschool for our three- and four-year old kids, and tailored supports for families facing challenges.
Washington needs a high-quality childcare system that helps working families afford care if they earn 85 percent or less of the statewide median household income, so they don’t pay more than 7 percent of their income for childcare. And, as other states do, implementing free universal preschool for three- and four-year olds would help our kids be ready for kindergarten.
We have strong evidence from nearly 50 years of academic studies that such an approach would result in higher education attainment for our kids, better health and higher earning power when they reach adulthood, less involvement with the criminal justice system, elimination of intergenerational poverty, and a stronger workforce. Businesses would benefit with less employee turnover and more people, especially women, entering the workforce.
The Washington Legislature has just convened. Tell your legislator to focus on implementing proven solutions to our failure to support working parents and to adequately prepare all of our children for the future.
The entire state will benefit, including our children, families, and the business sector.