Child care might be harder to find after COVID-19. Will that hurt economic recovery?
Mary Curry is worried.
Her home-based child care program in Tacoma is struggling to stay afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I went from having 12 kids to only having four,” she told The News Tribune.
Still, Curry made the decision to continue to operate for the kids who need her services. She was only able to do so, she said, because one of her family members took another job to help sustain the business.
Other providers across the state haven’t been as lucky. They’ve made the difficult decision to close, either because of financial losses or because they or someone they live with are at risk of contracting COVID-19.
As of Wednesday, 1,402 child care programs with the capacity to serve nearly 65,000 children across the state have closed, according to Child Care Aware of Washington, a nonprofit that has served families and providers for more than 30 years.
In Pierce County, 142 child care programs have closed, including 55 in Tacoma and 27 in Puyallup.
Others that have tried to stay open are on the brink of closure as they try to find the essential supplies they need to operate, like hand soap and baby wipes.
Depending on how long the crisis continues, many of the businesses that close might be unable to start back up again.
Child care advocates are warning that could have a domino effect on the entire state’s ability to get back to business.
Lack of child care is problematic for restarting the economy, Hannah Lidman, interim early learning policy director for Washington Children’s Alliance, said at a recent webinar with the League of Education Voters.
“If parents can’t get care, then they can’t go back to work,” Lidman said.
Already in crisis
The child care system in Washington state was struggling prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, said Marica Jacobs, communications manager for Child Care Aware of Washington.
Affordable child care was hard to find, and the need didn’t meet the demand. The lack led to a loss of more than $2 billion in direct costs to employers across the state, according to a Department of Commerce report from October 2019.
Child care is also chronically underfunded when it comes to children on subsidies, causing many programs to operate at a loss, Jacobs said. Subsidy rates are determined by the region of the state where the care is provided, the child’s age, the amount of care needed and the type of care.
For Curry, the state might pay between $752 and $805 per month, but the care costs $1,200.
“Our programs are really suffering,” Curry said.
When the pandemic began spreading and Gov. Jay Inslee announced his “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order in March, closures spiked. Children stopped showing up for care for various reasons: some parents were working from home, were laid off or were concerned for their children’s health, said Jacobs.
Providers scrambled to figure out what the new reality meant, said Child Care Aware of Washington CEO Deeann Puffert.
“‘Do I close down or do I stay open?’ was a big question in the beginning of the pandemic,” Puffert said. “‘If I do stay open, how do I keep myself safe and the children safe?’”
Providers found themselves losing much-needed revenue, having operated on razor-thin margins already, Jacobs said.
“Our fear is that right now, most open child care programs are operating at about 40-50 percent of regular enrollment,” Puffert said.
For the first few days after Inslee’s stay-home order, All Blessed Children Early Learning Center in Tacoma was empty, despite being open. The kids just weren’t showing up.
Now, the center that typically serves 16 children is operating at half that, said owners Andre and Tayisha Winston. In the beginning, it was hard to adjust. Food meant to feed 16 kids would spoil in the fridge.
“It was a big struggle,” Andre Winston said.
Curry found her days becoming longer as she and her staff worked to accommodate hours families needed care.
“I am worried about myself and also about other providers,” Curry said. “No matter where we land, we’re all struggling.”
Economy in a ‘pinch’
It’s hard to guess which child care providers will be able to start back up again and which ones will close permanently.
“Nobody has that kind of a crystal ball,” Jacobs said.
Early research by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and Center for American Progress suggests that half of U.S. child care capacity — roughly 4.5 million licensed slots — is at risk of disappearing if child care providers do not receive adequate support while they are closed. Washington state could lose 29 percent of its capacity post-COVID-19, or 42,000 slots.
The more capacity lost, the harder it will be to jump-start the economy, according to Amy Anderson, government affairs director for the Association of Washington Business.
“You’re going to see a lot of businesses that will not be able to reopen or ramp up business at the level you had before,” Anderson said. “It’s just going to be a slow economic recovery as a whole.”
A national push by child care advocates asks for $50 billion to help providers make it through the pandemic, arguing child care is a vital economic necessity. A report by the Center for Law and Social Policy suggests Washington should be allocated more than $830 million. About $3.5 billion was allocated for child care relief in Congress’s CARES Act.
“I think at the end of the day, what providers need is the ability to have some foundation funding to help them make their way through this time — and that takes particularly big dollars,” Puffert said.
At the very least, the pandemic has spotlighted just how important child care is to the economy.
“Because so many people are simultaneously feeling the pinch, it’s brought new urgency to the situation,” Puffert said.
Help on the way
Child Care Aware is helping providers get access to the essential materials they need to continue operating. A donation page is set up, and deliveries are being made across the state.
Child care programs also saw help in the form of $29 million in funding from the state Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) on Friday.
Small providers between 0-49 capacity can apply for $6,500, medium providers with 50-99 capacity can apply for $11,500 and large providers with capacity over 100 can apply for $14,000 in funding.
The funds can be used to pay for facility or rent costs, utilities, health and safety or cleaning supplies, staff compensation or benefits and food. The funding is only available to providers that have remained open.
“The stimulus funded grants to child care providers that DCYF shared on Friday will bring much needed financial relief to providers who have remained open,” Puffert said. “We have heard from many providers that their enrollment has been extremely low while the costs to keep children safe who are in care has increased.”
All Blessed Children Early Learning Center will even expand capacity, thanks to a Department of Commerce grant for $150,000 that the Winstons applied for last year. The grant will allow the facility to expand by 24 spaces. The Winstons were one of nine early learning centers to receive funding.
“This has been a major relief for our government to be able to release these funds and then help the small businesses out,” Andre Winston said.
Still, more help will be needed the longer the pandemic continues.
“There was a child care crisis before the pandemic, but the pandemic has definitely made things a lot harder,” Jacobs said.
This story was originally published May 14, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
