– Editorial – - Public funding needed for childcare

By Editorial Board

It costs more for families to have an infant in a daycare center, than to pay tuition to attend UW-Eau Claire.

According to Child Care Award of America, the annual cost for infant care in a daycare center in Chippewa County, is $9,483, about 11.5 percent of the median family income. By comparison, tuition and fees at UW-Eau Claire for the 2023-24 school year, are $9,276.

Access to safe, reliable and affordable childcare is a major barrier to full employment, community growth and the long-term viability of rural communities across the state. Parents are forced to leave the workforce to care for children and are choosing to have smaller families, because they cannot afford childcare costs.

Wisconsin must rethink the way infant and childcare is provided, from the top down and provide for full funding of childcare programs, through the state’s existing public school system. The districts could choose to run their own programs or contract with existing local care providers that met, or exceeded, benchmark standards. Funding for this could come through additional state aids, paid for through the existing sales tax system.

Under such a model, every child would be guaranteed a spot in a certified daycare center, and parents wouldn’t have to face the choice of making a mortgage payment or paying for childcare that month. Every community in Wisconsin, is part of a school system and schools already provide early childhood programs to students who qualify for them.

According to a study by the Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy, currently, childcare costs are unaffordable for the majority of fulltime working parents. The study found that 63 percent of parents would have a hard time paying for market-price full-time care. For lowincome parents, that percentage balloons to 95 percent. The analysis is based on the federal affordability benchmark of 7 percent of family income, set by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is far below the doubledigit percentages of household income seen in this area.

The broken economics of childcare in America, forces people out of the workforce, in order to raise their children. This, in turn, lowers their household earning potential, and leads to a greater likelihood of families caught in generational cycles of poverty and the societal costs that brings.

According to the Center for American Progress, parents who choose to leave the workforce, risk losing three to four times their salary in lifetime earnings, for every year they miss in the workforce.

On a broader economic sense, reducing out of pocket spending on infant and childcare means more money in the pockets of young families to buy homes, cars or to spend on other things. All of which would further bolster the economy and contribute to increased sales tax revenue at the state level.

It is time to rethink how childcare is provided in Wisconsin, and invest in publicly funded childcare for all families.

Members of the Courier Sentinel editorial board include publisher Carol O’Leary, general manager Kris O’Leary and Star News editor Brian Wilson.