Child Care

Despite being a critical economic support for working families and a key lever for promoting early learning and social-emotional development, child care is inaccessible and unaffordable for far too many families across the United States. The cost of providing high-quality child care is beyond what most families are able to pay, and child care subsidies that offset some of those costs only reach a fraction of eligible families and fail to meet providers’ true financial needs. Even when families can afford child care expenses, many face challenges with finding a seat in a program close to their home or work or with availability to work with their schedule. More than half of the U.S. population lives in a child care desert, with low-income, rural, and Hispanic and Latino communities facing the highest rates of child care deserts. Child care workers—who are overwhelmingly women and disproportionately women of color—are paid poverty wages with few if any benefits, driving a workforce recruitment and retention issue.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought the child care crisis into focus, but historic underinvestment and inaction on child care has resulted in a child care system that does not adequately meet the needs of anyone it should. The time is long overdue for large-scale public investments in a child care system that truly meets the needs of all families and fairly compensates the essential work of educators who make up the child care workforce.

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5 Things To Know About Head Start Report
A child from the Hyde Park Head Start program plays under a parachute.

5 Things To Know About Head Start

Head Start provides educational, health, nutritional, and social services to hundreds of thousands of young children and their families every year, playing a critical role in the U.S. early care and learning landscape.

Understanding the Basics of Child Care in the United States Article
Children sit on the rug at the TLC for Tots daycare center in Nampa, Idaho, November 20, 2024.

Understanding the Basics of Child Care in the United States

The United States needs real solutions at all levels of government, coupled with robust public investment, to build a child care and early learning system that works for children, families, educators, and providers.

The Early Childhood Policy Team

Head Start funding freeze: The panic was the point In the News

Head Start funding freeze: The panic was the point

In an op-ed published by the Wisconsin Examiner, Casey Peeks discusses Trump’s funding freeze and how it continues to affect Head Start programs across the country.

the Wisconsin Examiner

Casey Peeks

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