With high U.S. childcare costs, local voters fill funding gap

• Federal pandemic aid for childcare ends
• Local communities bolster access to childcare
• Local ballot measures approve childcare funds

WASHINGTON - For BriTanya Brown, the COVID-19 pandemic made the already difficult economics of her childcare business in rural west Texas almost impossible.

That instability threatened not just her family but also her community, where the mother of twins runs one of just two childcare businesses in a two-county area.

Federal pandemic funding helped, but that financial lifeline expired in September.

"There's just not enough money to keep any educator who wants to take care of children from birth to 5 afloat," Brown, 28, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by telephone.

"We don't make enough to take care of our own families."

With the expiration of the $50 billion in federal pandemic funding, many communities are trying to step up to bolster access and affordability.

Across the United States, 56 local children's funds raise $1.7 billion a year to help families with childcare costs, according to the non-profit Children’s Funding Project.

Childcare featured prominently in the recent presidential election, and it will be a priority for President-elect Donald Trump, transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in an emailed statement, noting he will “implement an economic agenda that will make America Affordable Again for working families.”

A lack of affordable childcare takes a huge toll on individual families and the broader economy as well.

Childcare often costs families thousands of dollars a year when it is available, and it poses a major obstacle for people with full-time jobs – especially women - in a country where federal paid maternity and family leave does not exist.

Rural and urban voters alike are experiencing the effects of these costs and, in a shift, are backing public support for businesses like Brown's – and she's helping.

As an organizer with a national group called Community Change Action Childcare Changemakers, Brown has helped Texas pass two ballot measures in the past two years, and she and others see more on the horizon.

Last year, voters in Texas approved a tax exemption for childcare businesses. Last month, residents in Travis County, where Austin is located, approved a property tax increase that will raise $75 million to make the area’s childcare more affordable.

Local ballot measures have become an increasingly important tool for "communities that were tired and desperate waiting for the federal government, and sometimes states, to act," said Elizabeth Gaines, chief executive of the Children’s Funding Project.

About 56 local voter-approved children's funds have been approved across the United States, a fraction of the need but an important indicator of community support, Gaines said.

After knocking on doors to drum up support for the two measures in Texas, Brown said it has become clear that voters respond to the local implications of childcare funding needs.

"It's no longer this far-off idea about funding the whole Department of Education or universal child care," she said.

"It's more palatable because they know that child care centre up the road."

Pandemic turning point

Childcare across the United States has faced serious economic headwinds, particularly since the pandemic, with even the U.S. Treasury warning it is a fundamentally broken model.

A Treasury report issued in 2021 said reliance on private financing for childcare fails to adequately serve many families and that the benefits of high-quality early education argue in favor of government subsidies for childcare costs. It also noted that childcare providers, who are mostly women and particularly women of color, are paid extremely low wages.

In the November election, voters approved five of seven local ballot measures on childcare across the country, including in Travis County. Another five local ballot measures that were approved focus on early childhood health and well-being.

Altogether the proposals are worth around $133 million, expanding services for 43,000 children, according to the Children's Funding Project.

Today Gaines said she has "a long list of communities" that have expressed interest in similar moves.

"The big thing is the recognition that we need more resources to go into the childcare sector – we need to identify sources of funding," said Julie Kashen, a senior fellow with the Century Foundation, a public policy think tank.

"Which is why counties this time around did ballot initiatives that targeted places they could find money, like lodging taxes, hotel taxes, excise taxes," she added.

'Skin in the game'

In rural La Plata County, Colorado, which has a significant tourist economy, voters in November approved the use of a hotel “lodger's tax” to back childcare.

The effort was spearheaded by the Good Food Collective, a local coalition addressing food insecurity including a focus, driven by a group of local Latina and immigrant mothers, on affordable childcare.

Carolina Díaz, a founding member of Grupo de Cuidado Infantil, said she had problems finding childcare for her girls, now 9 and 4, citing cost, accessibility and language barriers.

"My husband and I could not pay those high costs, so I started working from home, and at the same time I took care of my youngest daughter," she said, adding that the situation contributed to behavioural problems with her daughter along with ongoing childcare problems.

Díaz said she has found similar stories were widespread in her community.

"We began to hear very sad stories of 8-year-old children who stayed at home all day taking care of their little brothers under 1 or 2 years old, without the supervision of an adult," she recalled.

In La Plata, some 44% of children who need childcare can’t access it, said Tiffany Chacon, a childhood project manager with the Good Food Collective.

Infant care is especially lacking, with just a few dozen slots across the county at costs of up to $1,800 a month.

With two-thirds of voters approving the use of 70% of the local lodger’s tax for childcare and affordable housing, the effort is expected to raise around $700,000 a year.

"There have been zero public dollars invested in childcare down here," said Rachel Landis, executive director of the Good Food Collective.

"What the local ballot measures show is that this community and our local government have put skin in the game."

For Díaz, it feels like a historic response to an urgent issue.

"Childcare for children under 5 years of age cannot be a service that can only be accessed by those who can pay," she said. "The changes are beginning to materialize."

(Reporting by Carey L. Biron ; Editing by Anastasia Moloney and Ellen Wulfhorst)