A new column from the Center for American Progress (CAP) demonstrates that child care providers are struggling financially as they continue operating on reduced revenues and increased costs. Based on data from the Early Milestones Colorado survey, the article uses Colorado to illustrate how lack of public funding endangers invaluable child care infrastructure across the country.

Key findings include:

• Enrollment in early care and education is only 52% of pre-pandemic levels. This means that 56,000 infants, toddlers, and preschoolers in Colorado have not returned to child care.
• As of July, 23%, or around 4,000 members of the Colorado child care workforce were laid off or furloughed. Many of them were women or operated minority-owned businesses.
• Pre-K programs were most affected by the enrollment decline, losing over 70% of their children. Child care centers and home-based programs were able to retain 52% and 66% of their pre-pandemic enrollment respectively.

These statistics shed light on the need for additional federal relief, as programs that received some form of public assistance saw less severe declines in enrollment and were able to retain more educators. “If child care were publicly funded rather than funded largely by parental tuition and fees,” CAP researchers imagine, “the industry’s ability to withstand the pandemic would play out more similarly to that of K-12 schools, which may close in the short term but will retain their staff and facilities so that they can reopen when it is safe to do so.”

“These early data from Colorado show that child care providers are in an untenable position, with fewer children and families to serve and greater expenses to cover,” the analysis concludes. “Action is needed now—before we lose this crucial economic infrastructure.”

Read the full column here.

The September jobs report revealed that women continue to be hit hard by the pandemic as child care responsibilities make it difficult for mothers to continue working or return to work.

New York Times reporter Jeanna Smialek wrote that many women dropped out of the workforce entirely in September, as labor force participation dropped to 55.6 percent from 56.1 percent. Aside from April and May of 2020, this marks the lowest reading for women’s labor force participation since 1987.

Smialek writes, “Census Bureau and Minneapolis Fed research suggests mothers have been far more likely than fathers to pull back on work amid the pandemic. About one in five working-age adults said this summer that they were not working was because the pandemic disrupted their child care — and of those not working, women ages 25 to 44 were almost three times as likely as men to be out of a job thanks to child care.”

Economic experts are sounding the alarm. In a recent speech, Thomas Barkin, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond said, “As we head into the fall, the challenges of virtual schooling and prolonged child care closures may already be putting downward pressure on women’s participation.”

Read the full story from the New York Times here.

Over the past few months, we’ve heard from countless early learning and care facilities across the country who, after doing everything possible to stay afloat, have had to make the difficult decision to close their doors for good as a result of the pandemic. 

Last week, Hopkins Early Learning Center (HELC) just outside of Minneapolis, MN, informed the families and community they’d served for four decades that they had begun the process of dissolving. Over 115 children are typically enrolled at HELC. Now, their families must find other options at a time when options are few and far between.

The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated America’s already-fragile child care industry. On average, child care providers nationwide are facing a 59% increase in operating costs to keep up with health and safety standards, while enrollment is down over 67% — unsustainable figures for an industry that has always operated on razor-thin margins. 

Child care providers have made clear they need financial relief to be able to stay in business through what promises to be an unstable and unpredictable year ahead. 

Even school leaders at HELC tried to convince Congress of the dire situation they and others were facing… back in May. Take a look at their message:

While a number of proposals have been introduced in Congress to provide much-needed relief to American families and businesses — including child care providers — leaders have failed to reach a deal in negotiating a final package.

Until they do, more programs like Hopkins Early Learning Center will continue to close. And with every day that passes, the situation becomes increasingly more dire for working parents and the incredible early educators who care for America’s young children. 

Learn more about the impact of the nation’s child care crisis at childcarerelief.org.

Home-based providers face 70 percent increase

A new interactive tool created by the Center for American Progress (CAP) estimates the true cost of providing child care that meets pandemic-related state guidelines. Child care is a necessity for working families, yet providers are struggling to stay open due to increased expenses and lower enrollment during the pandemic.

Using the tool, CAP found that, on average, child care providers are facing a 47 percent increase in operating costs during the pandemic, with home-based family child care providers facing a 70 percent increase. Driving this increase are personnel costs and the increased spending on sanitation supplies:

• Personnel Costs: Personnel costs remained at the same level, or even increased, during the pandemic, as child care centers have been required to have fully dedicated staff for each classroom as well as staffing to manage the new pickup and drop-off procedures.
  
• Sanitation Supplies: While child care providers have always had high sanitation standards, they have had to purchase additional personal protective equipment such as masks and gloves, thermometers for temperature monitoring, and additional hand sanitizer and disinfectant. 

The increased costs of providing child care during the pandemic are too high for providers to shoulder on their own. Many states have used funding from the CARES Act to help offset their increased costs. However, data from CAP’s calculator shows that the CARES Act only covered 30 percent of the cost of child care slots for one month. 

These findings provide more evidence of the need for greater, immediate federal investment in child care to ensure that providers can meet these additional costs, stay open, and provide safe care for the millions of children and families who rely on it.

You can find the methodology for the cost calculator from the Center for American Progress here.