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Monday, Sept. 18, 2023 | 2 a.m.
As a lack of affordable and accessible child care forces parents nationwide to prematurely leave the workforce and stay home with their kids, there are few states where the issue is more prevalent than in Nevada.
The Silver State ranks in the bottom quartile of the U.S. on most issues related to children and family, with its best showing at No. 38 in health and its lowest at No. 48 in economic well-being, according to the 2023 Kids Count Data Book, which was released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation earlier this summer and focused primarily on a widespread child care crisis.
“There’s always been a need around child care,” said Tara Raines, deputy director of the Children’s Advocacy Alliance, a Las Vegas-based nonprofit. “And what we found out in the report this year was that the need is especially great in the state of Nevada.”
In Nevada, which ranked 47th for overall child well-being, married couples with children paid a higher percentage of median income for child care than anywhere else in the country, at 15%. Single mothers in the state paid 38% of their income.
Overall, center-based child care in Nevada averages nearly $13,900, which is significantly more than the average cost of tuition at an in-state, four-year public university.
“If you think about our economic crisis with the inflation in housing and the inflation in food and the inflation in interest rates and everything else, the percentage of people’s income that’s going toward child care here in our state is egregious,” Raines said. “It’s outrageous.”
The result is many parents leaving the workforce entirely, and the report showed approximately 28,000 children in Nevada live in families that have faced issues like job loss or quitting due to the child care crisis.
The ripple effect of people leaving the workforce is significant, Raines said, and can affect a parent’s ability to adequately save for retirement, be promoted or ultimately achieve their greatest economic potential.
The crisis has led to a national economic loss of $122 billion annually, per the report, which also noted that shift workers, single parents, student parents and families of color are particularly affected by shortcomings in the child care system.
“The current prevalence of barriers to affordable and accessible child care increases the risk for postpartum depression in families who have difficulty accessing child care,” said Marty Elquist, development department director at the Las Vegas nonprofit Children’s Cabinet. “So that stress is impacting mental health for our mothers that need to return to the workforce, and to our families (and) to our fathers, too.”
It’s important that children are in high-quality, early learning environments, Eliquist said, and many people in Nevada who don’t have family or friends on whom they can rely for child care need access to licensed child care instead.
“We need our children to be supported by professionals and workers that know early learning brain science,” she said. “They know social, emotional development; they know how to engage with children and have those interactions with children that help our children develop, so they’re ready for school and they’re ready for life.”
Raines echoed the sentiment, saying that early childhood development through a child care center or in-home child care is important for preparing kids for the future.
“It’s an imperative that we address this early childhood issue,” Raines said. “Because the ripple impacts every other societal struggle that we’re facing.”
A major contributing factor to the current child care crisis is how poorly compensated child care workers are paid compared with other professions.
The median national pay for child care workers in 2022 was $28,520 per year, or $13.71 per hour, the foundation said in a release about the data book. The release also noted that hourly wage was less than that for retail workers ($14.26) and customer service workers ($18.16.)
Child care workers in the U.S. make less than 98% of the nation’s other workers, the report said.
According to May 2022 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the annual mean wage of child care workers in Nevada was between $27,860 and $31,580. Three of five states bordering Nevada — Arizona, California and Oregon — report a higher annual wage for child care workers.
“The workforce doesn’t make very much money,” Raines said. “So, when you aren’t paying people a good wage, it’s going to be harder to find workers.”
Much of the child care workforce left the system during the pandemic, Elquist said, emphasizing that the industry had already been in crisis before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The workforce has still not regained its pre-pandemic workforce, she said, though the number of child care centers in Nevada has increased substantially. Demand for care has grown with Nevada’s population, she said, and there are now 460 child care centers statewide.
One of the most troubling trends nationwide has been the “severe decline” of licensed family child care — individuals who can provide in-home care for up to six children, Elquist said. Nevada has just over 160 licensed for family child care, and fewer than 100 people who are licensed for group family child care, which involves taking care of up to 13 kids.
“It is very, very difficult to care for large groups of children,” she said. “And caregivers — they need to be supported, they need to be trained, they need to know how to provide high quality care.”
Organizations like the Children’s Advocacy Alliance and the Children’s Cabinet have worked to funnel state and federal dollars toward the child care crisis, and Elquist noted many efforts to not only support families in need of child care but also the workers responsible for providing it.
Though there’s been a shortage of child care providers in the last several years, she said, the capacity available in child care centers in Nevada has increased to more than 46,600 — which she ultimately called a “net gain.”
“The important thing to keep in mind is that, even though our capacity grew, what’s limiting our providers to filling that capacity is not having the workforce to fill the classrooms,” Elquist said. “So, it’s a workforce issue that we’re trying to address.”
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