Reports Of Child Care’s Demise Appear To Have Been Premature

It’s hard to find an industry that wasn’t fundamentally disrupted by the global COVID pandemic, but one particularly hard-hit field was child care. There was a combination of increased health concerns and decreased demand since many parents were working from home.

It all added up to a situation some experts described as a “child care cliff” — but how bad was it?

The pandemic lifeline

Like many other businesses impacted by COVID, many child care providers had access to emergency funding. But that money dried up even though demand is still a far cry from where it was prior to the pandemic.

As a result, it’s clear that many of these businesses are struggling to remain in business. But many communities still have a vibrant child care community, so it wouldn’t be accurate to say that the industry has gone off any proverbial cliff just yet.

Digging into the details

The Century Foundation think tank recently took a deep dive into the issue of child care in the United States and found a few interesting facts as a result of its investigation. Even though businesses aren’t going under at quite the pace of some pessimistic forecasts, a number of troubling predictions are starting to come true.

Julie Kashen of the Century Foundation explained: “The prediction was that first, providers will raise their prices to cover the costs that were being covered by federal dollars, then they will serve fewer kids and close classrooms, and then they will close programs. We’re seeing the first and second parts right now.”

Some states have offered their own funding to offset the loss of federal money, but this isn’t a long-term solution to the problem. The surging costs and reduced availability of child care has made this a prominent issue during the presidential election season.

Chris Agee September 27th, 2024

Share this story: