This series examines a key barrier to families’ ability to find care for their children: rampant shortages of child care options. Areas where there are too few licensed slots for the number of children who need care are known as child care deserts, and more than half of America’s children—particularly those from low- and middle-income, Hispanic, and rural communities—live in one.
Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on child care providers and workers’ abilities to sustain providing care, the Center for American Progress will continue to release updated data on child care deserts and their impact on families and communities across the country.
Visit childcaredeserts.org to view an interactive map of the nation's child care deserts.
More than half of the U.S. population lives in a neighborhood classified as a child care desert.
(CAP/Chester Hawkins)
3 Ways Federal Investments Can Address Child Care Deserts in America
Comprehensive, sustained investments in child care can create historic opportunities to transform the system by building supply, expanding affordability, and supporting the workforce.
Costly and Unavailable: America Lacks Sufficient Child Care Supply for Infants and Toddlers
Less than one-fourth of infants and toddlers across a sample including 19 states and Washington, D.C., could be served by the existing licensed child care supply. The coronavirus crisis is likely to make that worse.
The Coronavirus Will Make Child Care Deserts Worse and Exacerbate Inequality
The COVID-19 pandemic could cause many child care providers to remain closed permanently, especially in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.
CAP’s geographic study of child care markets finds that approximately half of Americans across 22 states live in areas with an undersupply of child care options.
