MarketWatch

With inflation at a 40-year high, families are feeling the pinch of higher prices at the grocery store checkout, on their home heating bill, and when they pay rent.

But there’s another expense that’s been growing even faster in recent years: child care. The growth in child-care prices exceeded the annual rate of inflation in 2020 and 2019, according to a new report from Child Care Aware.

EdSurge

Nearly 16,000 child care programs across 37 U.S. states have permanently closed since the pandemic began, representing a 9 percent decline in the total number of licensed child care providers, according to a new report published this month by Child Care Aware of America.

Though perhaps less severe than some of the worst-case scenarios laid out in early 2020, the loss of thousands of providers reflects an ever-worsening crisis in the field of early care and education, accelerated by—but not originating with—the arrival of COVID-19.

These closures are sure to have major effects on everyone touched by the child care industry, says Mario Cardona, Chief of Policy and Practice at Child Care Aware of America, a national membership association that works to improve child care and the early childhood profession and that conducted the survey which was the basis for the new report.

Read the full article. 

Bloomberg

After the pandemic struck and lockdowns ensued, Congress included $3.5 billion for childcare in its initial rescue package in April 2020 and another $10 billion in a second bill that December. But at $39 billion, “the scale of the ARPA funding is very different,” said Anne Hedgepeth, senior director of federal and state government affairs at Child Care Aware of America, a network of childcare care resource and referral agencies.

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Providers faced additional challenges. Keeping employees and children uninfected is an expensive endeavor. Social distancing and other precautions necessarily limit the number of kids who can be safely accommodated—which in turn limits potential revenue. While most of the U.S. economy has suffered greatly as a result of the crisis, the childcare industry has been in the eye of the storm. 

And the storm isn’t over yet. “There’s a desperate and ongoing need for a lifeline,” Hedgepeth said.

Read the full article.

Fortune Magazine

When thousands of childcare centers and day cares reopened after the COVID-19 lockdowns lifted in 2020, it seemed as if those businesses, and the families they served, were through the worst of it. 

Little did everyone know that two years later, an industry that was stretched to the brink even before the pandemic would be in still more turmoil, as childcare providers have been hit with a massive wave of closures. 

Nearly 16,000 childcare centers and licensed family childcare programs closed permanently between December 2019 and March 2021, according to a new report from Child Care Aware of America. Those closures are due, in large part, to increased operating costs, razor-thin profit margins, unpredictable attendance as a result of COVID, and rising labor costs owing to inflation.  

Those shuttered childcare providers represented a 9% decrease in childcare centers and day cares nationwide. And while that may seem low, the U.S. is already suffering from a dearth of childcare providers. Pre-pandemic, over half of Americans lived in areas considered “childcare deserts”—communities where there are either no childcare providers, or so few that there are three children for every open slot.

“Childcare programs are barely staying in business,” Lynette Fraga, CEO of Child Care Aware of America, a national nonprofit focused on childcare resources, said in a statement about the report. “Childcare programs are short-staffed, and providers are burned out."

Read the full article.

EdSource

Nearly 16,000 child care providers, 8,900 child care centers and 7,000 licensed family child care programs, permanently closed from December 2019 to March 2021, according to a new report from Child Care Aware of America. 

“Parents continue to struggle to find and afford child care as they re-enter the workforce,” said Lynette M. Fraga, CEO of Child Care Aware. “Child care programs are short-staffed and providers are burned out. And still too few children have access to high-quality early learning experiences to prepare them for success in school and beyond. Without large-scale investments in our child care system, such as the Build Back Better Act, these trends will continue.” 

Read the full article. 

Child Care Aware® of America (CCAoA) today released a new report and interactive website that outline how the U.S. child care system has changed since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The report, titled Demanding Change: Repairing our Child Care System, highlights new survey data showing that nearly 16,000 child care providers (8,900 child care centers and 7,000 licensed family child care programs) permanently closed from December 2019 to March 2021 in 37 states for which data was available. This represents a 9% decrease in child care providers. The survey data also shows that the national annual average price of child care in 2020 was around $10,174, a 5% increase from 2019 and at a rate faster than the increase in the price for consumer goods over the same period of time.  
 
The report contains sections on child care supply, demand, affordability, and the child care workforce. Each section features data from CCAoA’s annual survey of Child Care Resource and Referral agencies and other state partners, along with case studies that focus on critical issues facing our country and how they impact the child care system, including equity, COVID‑19, the role of data and the economy. 
 
Explore the interactive website and report: childcareaware.org/demanding-change 

Mario Cardona, Child Care Aware® of America’s Chief of Policy and Practice, has been selected for a Pahara Fellowship, a one-year program that identifies exceptional leaders in the educational excellence and equity movement, facilitates their dynamic growth, and strengthens their collective efforts to dramatically improve public education, especially those programs serving low-income children and communities. 

Child Care Aware® of America (CCAoA) today announced the expansion of a disaster preparedness project for Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) agencies in Midwest states. This project is one of the many ways that CCAoA builds capacity within the child care system in order to advance equity and to impact the quality of care for children and families. 
 
Most recently, the project involved CCR&R agencies in Iowa, Missouri (Kansas City metro area), Montana and Oklahoma working to integrate child care needs at all levels and phases of emergencies. It also promoted cross-sector collaboration by ensuring first responders, secondary responders, emergency managers, business leaders and elected officials recognize the needs of children and the child care workforce before, during and after disaster.  

Inside Philanthropy

At the Arlington, Virginia-based Child Care Aware of America (CCAA), an umbrella organization of child care resource and referral agencies, Deputy Executive Officer Michelle McCready...reports a big uptick in interest and an expanded pool of new foundations and funders from adjacent issues. Institutions with a traditional focus on disaster relief, economic security, women’s issues and K-12 education now all see common cause with ECE and are responding positively to requests for support.

Stateline (Pew Charitable Trusts)

Many of the recent proposals will likely be funded by American Rescue Plan Act funds—even if governors aren’t making that explicit, said Anne Hedgepeth, deputy chief of policy for Child Care Aware of America, a nonprofit that works with child care resource and referral agencies and advocates for child care policies. 

“You see relief [funds] driving it,” she said. 

Some states have started distributing the federal child care funds, but others still are working on their plans for the money. 

That’s partly due to timing, Hedgepeth said. In some states, legislatures need to approve the spending and didn’t have time to do so last session.

Read the full article.