---
title: The child care crisis just keeps getting worse
description: Waiting lists are getting longer, and child care centers say they’re losing workers to fast-food chains with better wages and benefits.
---

[Media Center | Child Care Aware of America ](https://info.childcareaware.org/media)

# [The child care crisis just keeps getting worse](https://info.childcareaware.org/media/the-child-care-crisis-just-keeps-getting-worse)

 Written by [CCAoA](https://info.childcareaware.org/media/author/ccaoa) | Sep 27, 2022 5:25:00 PM

Vox

On the Senate floor in early August, just two days before lawmakers voted [to pass the Inflation Reduction Act](https://www.vox.com/2022/8/8/23296951/inflation-reduction-act-biden-democrats-climate-change), four senior Democrats came out to lament what they believed to be the bill’s biggest omission: child care.

“We cannot simply vote on this package and call it a day,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) said. “Our child care system isn’t just stretched thin; it is broken.”

Less than two months later, the extent of that brokenness is clearer than ever. Public schools are fully reopened, and most pandemic-era restrictions are relaxed. But working conditions for families** **with kids who need child care are not back to normal. For both workers and parents,** **already-grim trends in child care have only gotten worse since the pandemic** **began: program costs have increased, while waiting lists in several states number in the tens of thousands.

Despite the long wait lists, nearly [90,000 fewer people](https://cscce.berkeley.edu/publications/brief/child-care-sector-jobs-bls-analysis/) are working in the child care industry today compared to February 2020. Many child care centers say they are losing workers because it has become impossible to compete with the [rising wages and benefits](https://earlylearningnation.com/2022/08/i-cant-compete-child-care-providers-are-losing-staff-to-mcdonalds-and-target/) offered by large corporations like Amazon, Target, Starbucks, and McDonald’s.<https://voxmedia.iad1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cHpWi9wIVQ1Iquq?Source1=Vox>

The pandemic, replete with parents working over Zoom as their kids screamed in the background, fueled greater recognition of the child care crisis — and the need for the government [to do something about it](https://www.ffyf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/M-14242-FFYF-Seven-State-memo.pdf). Both women overall and strong Republican-leaning voters [say they’d be more likely](https://www.ffyf.org/september-2021-poll-full-results-deck/) to vote for a candidate who supports investing in child care to make it more accessible and affordable. Child care remains one of the biggest expenses working families shoulder, with [average costs](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/21/average-cost-of-child-care-is-now-more-than-10000-dollars-per-year.html#:~:text=Save%20and%20Invest-,Child%20care%20now%20costs%20more%20than%20%2410%2C000%20per%20year%20on,here's%20why%20that's%20a%20problem&text=Child%20care%20is%20getting%20more,report%20from%20Child%20Care%20Aware.) exceeding $10,000 per year.

[Read the full article](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/9/27/23356278/the-pandemic-child-care-inflation-crisis?fbclid=IwAR1S0SC8Bw1wtlsW-4i5UkNEJqKzO-gTyhzJC_xeplm15Kq0TVjv7wMF-MA).

[View full post](https://info.childcareaware.org/media/the-child-care-crisis-just-keeps-getting-worse)

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