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For years, advocates have been working on an incremental basis to improve child care and early education in Minnesota. We’ve had some important successes. Early Learning Scholarships have been funded for some children in low-income families, and child care subsidy rates have been increased.
As important as those improvements are, this incremental approach isn’t proving sufficient to fix a child care “system” that is completely melting down. Just look at the recent closure of three centers in Duluth (“Duluth in ‘near-crisis’ with child care shortage, task force says,” StarTribune.com, Sept. 18).
On the parent side, child care is utterly unaffordable. Under the Trump and Biden administrations there has been agreement that the amount families can afford to pay for child care is 7% of their household income. Recently Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, also came out in support of the 7% standard.
Currently, a Minnesota family earning the median income with a 4-year-old and infant is spending about 37% of its income for child care. Being forced to pay five times more than what is affordable is not feasible. That’s why so many Minnesota parents are dropping out of the workforce, going into debt and/or forgoing important investments in their futures.
On the child care provider side, early educators working in child care programs are earning an average of $16 per hour. This means the people who care for and education our youngest children could earn more working at a local gas station.
So, why aren’t child care providers decreasing prices to a point that parents find affordable? Providers with razor-thin profit margins and an already tragically underpaid workforce can’t do that. That’s why so many are closing.