Washington, D.C. — Nearly 70 percent of young children across the United States—around 14.7 million—had all their available parents engaged in the workforce in 2023, the highest rate of the past decade, making child care an essential support for family economic security as well as early learning and development. A new report and updated interactive data dashboard from the Center for American Progress provide fresh insight into the U.S. child care landscape, including new datapoints showing the prevalence of early childhood homelessness and the wages of Head Start educators.
This interactive CAP resource includes new data from 2023 and 2024, as well as historic data spanning from 2015 to 2024, offering a portrait of the early childhood landscape in each state, the District of Columbia, and at the national level. An accompanying summary report highlights notable trends in the data and how they can be used to inform policymaking in ways that more equitably and effectively meet the needs of children, families, and educators.
Key findings from the report include:
- In 2023, nearly 558,000 children under age five experienced homelessness—an increase of around 36,250 children in the previous year.
- Inflation-adjusted median hourly wages increased by only $2.11 for child care teachers and less than 30 cents for preschool teachers between 2015 and 2023.
- Average hourly wages increased by only $1.26 for Early Head Start classroom teachers and just 52 cents for Head Start preschool classroom teachers between 2015 and 2024, adjusting for inflation.
- Less than 14 percent of young children who met federal eligibility standards for child care subsidies in 2021 actually received them.
- Nationally, average annual child care prices continue to outpace inflation. Between 2016 and 2023, inflation-adjusted annual child care prices rose by $1,058 for two children in center-based care and $2,739 for two children in family-based care.
- Young children continue to live in alarmingly high rates of poverty. Hitting 15 percent, early childhood poverty increased by more than 2 percentage points from 2022 to 2023.
Notably, the chronic inaccessibility of high-quality, affordable child care disproportionately affects communities of color, women, and low-income families, the data show. For example, early educators are overwhelmingly women of color, who continue to earn poverty-level wages and often must rely on public safety net programs to care for their own families. There are also striking racial disparities in evictions and childhood homelessness; approximately 1 in 4 Black babies and toddlers living in a rental home experience the threat of eviction in an average year.
“Child care and early learning programs are key to any well-functioning society, letting parents attend work or school and promoting healthy early development that sets children up for success throughout their life,” said Allie Schneider, policy analyst for Early Childhood Policy at CAP and author of the report. “For far too many American families, finding and affording high-quality child care continues to be a struggle—harming children, their families’ long-term financial security, and our economy overall.”
Read the column: “A 2024 Review of Child Care and Early Learning in the United States” by Allie Schneider
For more information or to speak with an expert, contact Mishka Espey at [email protected].