Ohio needs to do better when it comes to child care

High-quality child care doesn’t just lay the groundwork for kids to have a better future; it’s part of Ohio’s economic foundation in the present.

Our labor force is stronger when parents can go to work knowing their kids are cared for. When child care providers can afford to hire and retain skilled staff, they can keep our children safe and give each child the attention they deserve. Everyone benefits when child care workers — who are disproportionately women and disproportionately Black — can afford high-quality care for their own kids.

To get child care right, Ohio leaders need to balance the needs of those three groups — parents, providers and workers. For too long, policymakers have gotten it wrong and the littlest Ohioans suffer the consequences.

The good news is that policymakers can improve Ohio’s child care system. For example, they can make public funding for child care available to more families. Currently, the funding is available only to families with very low incomes: $36,074 annually for a family of three. But child care is unaffordable even for families in Ohio’s economic middle. The average monthly cost for one infant’s care eats up almost 17% of the typical (median) household monthly income. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says child care is unaffordable if it costs more than 7% of a family’s income. According to the Economic Policy Institute, that means child care is only affordable for the highest-paid 12.2% of Ohio households.

Child care isn’t just hard to afford; it’s also hard to find, especially in rural counties. Compare the concentration of child care centers in the Columbus area to the scarcity in southeast Ohio. Although Franklin County’s population is similar to the combined populations of all 32 Appalachian Ohio counties, the Columbus area is home to 133 more child care centers. Every corner of Ohio should have enough child care centers to meet the needs of families, yet nearly 40% of Ohioans live in a child care desert.

One reason it’s so hard to find child care providers: Elected officials reimburse them so poorly for their work that they struggle to stay open. Ohio has never conducted a cost-of-care study, instead setting reimbursement rates using data from a backward-looking survey of what providers recently charged for services in an area. Then we reimburse publicly funded child care providers at the 35th percentile — less than what’s charged by 65% of providers in the area. This is so low the Biden administration mandated an increase to the 50th percentile. But to eliminate child care deserts, we need our lawmakers to do more than the minimum and reimburse providers at the 75th percentile.

Raising reimbursement rates could help get to the root of the problem: A critical shortage of child care workers. From 2017 to 2022, the number of child care workers in Ohio dropped by 35.89%. That is likely related to the shamefully low wages: The median hourly wage for child care workers is just $13.15, too little to afford child care — or much else — for their own kids. Raising reimbursement rates could help address this issue, but only if the increase comes with the requirement that funds primarily be used to raise worker pay, cover benefits, and improve working conditions.

Ohio’s kids deserve a fix to the child care crisis — and our economy requires it. Lawmakers should:

• Raise eligibility for publicly funded child care to 300% of the federal poverty level.
• Raise reimbursement rates to the 75th percentile and require the lion’s share of the increase go to child care workers.
• Conduct a cost-of-care analysis to guide policy decisions.