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EDITORIAL: Broken child care system harms children, families and employers -- and it's expensive

Bangor Daily News - 6/6/2023

Jun. 6—The BDN Editorial Board operates independently from the newsroom, and does not set policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com.

As we've written before, Maine's — and the country's — child care system is broken. Care is often hard to find, and increasingly, unaffordable. At the same time, child care providers can't hire and retain enough staff because they can't raise wages without further pricing parents out of the market. As a result, More than 170 day care operators in the state have closed in recent years.

This broken system harms children who may not receive the care and education they need and parents whose work is disrupted — and carries a hefty price tag. According to a new report from the Council for a Strong America and Ready Nation, the crisis in infant and toddler care costs Maine more than $400 million a year. That figure includes wages lost when parents take time off to care for children and lost productivity, as well as lower tax payments. The impacts go far beyond the families struggling to find child care.

According to the report, there are approximately 37,000 children under age 3 in Maine, and 70 percent of these young children have mothers who are in the workforce. Yet, 22 percent of Mainers live in a child care "desert," which the report defines as where there are more than three children under age 5 for each licensed child care slot.

Even if care is available, it is expensive. Infant care at a child care center in Maine averages $11,960 per year, the report said. That is more expensive than the annual cost for in-state public college tuition.

Speaking at a press conference Monday in support of legislative action where the report was released, Katherine Johnston of Hallowell said she struggled to find child care for both her children. At one point, she was on nearly 40 different waitlists and one center called two years later to say they had a spot.

"Parents are paying more than we ever thought possible," she said. "We're paying more than our mortgages for child care that we need in order to go to work because the kids need to be somewhere."

Like so many other human services, the U.S. is an outlier among rich countries when it comes to child care. For example, many countries in Europe devote what amounts to more than $10,000 per child a year in public spending to childcare. In the U.S. it is $500 a year.

A bill from Senate President Troy Jackson aims to tackle the problem from both ends, by providing increased state financial support both for parents and for child care providers. Jackson's bill, among various provisions, would double the monthly wage stipend for child care workers from $200 to $400 and expand subsidies to families making up to 125 percent of the state's median income. The current subsidy limit is 85 percent of the state's median income.

The bill, which was supported by the Legislature's Health and Human Services Committee last week, may be considered expensive — an amended version has an annual price tag of about $36 million. But, given the costs documented in the recent report, this is a good investment of state dollars.

A bill to update and expand tax credits to employers that provide or pay for child care, and a wide-ranging bill to change child care subsidy payments for some parents and providers while also changing some regulations for child care providers, have been carried over to the next legislative session.

Lack of affordable child care in Maine is harming children, families and employers. It is also costly. Working to address this crisis, by boosting child care salaries while also reducing costs for parents, must be a priority for lawmakers as they wind down this legislative session.

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(c)2023 the Bangor Daily News (Bangor, Maine)

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