Insufficient child care costs state, families $1.34B

When the Goffi family moved to Nashville last month, they were shocked by the cost of living in the booming city — and even more astounded by the price tag for quality child care.

Ty Goffi had just taken a transfer position with Amazon, a good opportunity for him.

But when Cara Goffi was then offered a job on a research team at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, she panicked.

The Goffis have three young kids. The only day cares Cara Goffi found in Nashville that met her standard had wait lists that stretched months, if not years. Not to mention the tuition at each soared past $2,000 a month for her two small daughters.

“It’s a black hole of despair,” Goffi said.

It was enough to make the working mom waffle about accepting the job. She knew if she took the position a majority of her paycheck would go directly to child care.

“All I could think of was: ‘I’m going to go to work just to pay for someone else to raise my kids.’”

Across Tennessee, there are more than 181,400 working parents with children under age 5, many of whom struggle to find suitable child care to support their employment and career advancement.

When families can’t secure child care, their work opportunities are undermined, household incomes are lower, workplace productivity falls and economic activity is reduced. As a result, businesses suffer and tax revenues are lower.

Statewide that translates to $1.34 billion annually in lost earnings and revenue, according to a new report that examined the economic consequences of having insufficient and inadequate child care in Tennessee.

The study, conducted by the Tennesseans for Quality Early Education policy coalition, provides a detailed look at the dollar figures — both the cost to working families and to the state’s bottom line. It was produced from a survey of 2,330 Tennessee families with children under age 5 and conducted in June and July.

Parents who encounter child care problems lose an estimated $4,690 in wages each year due to reduced productivity, time without a job due to insufficient child care options and time spent searching for a job that fits a working parent’s needs, the report found.

That translates to $850 million in annual earnings lost statewide, according to the report.

An overwhelming 98% of Tennessee parents of children age 4 or younger said that inadequate child care services hurt their work productivity or limited career opportunities. Specifically:

› 39% turned down a new job offer or promotion.

› 35% had their pay or work hours reduced or changed employment status to part time.

› 33% turned down education or training.

› 32% had to quit a job, or were fired or demoted.

“For a state concerned with workforce and workforce development, it is important for us all to understand how this is affecting workforce productivity and our economy,” said Blair Taylor, president of Memphis Tomorrow and chair of Tennesseans for Quality Early Education.

The call is for collaborative action by the state government and Tennessee’s business sector to create a “system overhaul” and “crack the code on great child care,” Taylor said.

AFFORDABILITY ISSUES CREATE SNOWBALL EFFECT

When parents were asked about the most significant child care challenges, half cited difficulty finding high-quality care.

Sixty-five percent cited access as a significant issue, with too few slots available and not enough facilities that accommodate work schedules outside traditional Monday through Friday daytime hours.

And 63% cited affordability.

The cost of centerbased care for an infant in Tennessee is $8,524 per year, thousands more than the average tuition cost for the state’s public community, technical and four-year colleges, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education.

Add a 4-year-old to the day care bill along with a baby and the cost rises to $15,814 a year. That expense is 20.9% of the median income for a married family and 60.4% if that family of four lives in poverty, according to TQEE’s report.

Parents need child care so they can go to work, earn a living for their families and build successful careers, but the high cost makes child care unaffordable for many of Tennessee’s hard-working families, the report asserts.

“It’s unsustainable,” said Nancy Eisenbrandt, workforce development director for the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, which is one of nearly two dozen business organizations statewide that partnered to create the Tennesseans for Quality Early Education report.

CHILD-CARE DESERTS LEAVE NO OPTIONS

Statewide, TQEE reports 48% of Tennessee families live in a child care desert, which is a region with three times as many children as there are licensed care facilities.

More than a third of Tennessee families rely on formal center-based care, Head Start or schoolbased pre-K.

Many other parents in Tennessee cobble together multiple other arrangements. Some rely on informal and often unlicensed care, with 42% depending on family members for at least part of the time, according to TQEE’s report.

Melyssa Campbell was diagnosed with thyroid cancer six years ago. A single mom with an infant, she already had plans to return to work. Suddenly, the need was more urgent. She had to find child care so she could attend her medical appointments.

She struggled for two years to find a place she could afford. She didn’t work full time. Instead, she pursued a business degree at the University of Phoenix to bolster her resume for when she could return to the job force.

With help of her case manager at the food stamp office, Campbell finally found Nashville’s Richland Head Start Center on Charlotte Avenue. With a capacity of 220, there were openings.

Campbell qualified financially for the state’s Child Care Certificate Program, which provides payment support to families who are working, in post-secondary education programs and teen parents enrolled in high school.

At other day cares she looked into, the voucher still left her paying at least $100 a week, which, she said, “is a huge financial strain on a single parent.”

In Tennessee, fewer than one in seven families have access to direct support for their child care needs, either from their employer or from the Tennessee Child Care Payment Assistance program, according to the TQEE’s report.

And when they do, the facilities available don’t always meet needs beyond the 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. schedule of the typical workday, leaving many parents in industries like health care and law enforcement in a lurch.

Michelle Pace has been raising her now 7-year-old granddaughter, Lily, since the little girl was an infant.

Pace worked two, and at times three jobs, to make ends meet. She had a fulltime position at a local hospital in Chattanooga doing chart audits. She worked part-time as a Realtor. And, on the weekends, she did double shifts as a server at Longhorn Steakhouse. All left her scrambling. “I wasn’t off by 6 p.m., so I was really struggling to find something that I could keep both my jobs and support us and have Lily cared for,” Pace said.

She tried in-home day care for a while because they were more flexible, but there were still setbacks that caused her to miss work. A few times she went to drop off Lily and no one answered the door. A different care giver ended up moving.

It wasn’t until she found Chattanooga’s Chambliss Center for Children, which offers care 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, that she felt unburdened. But Pace knows what was a “absolute blessing” in her life is a rarity statewide.

“There are so many people out there whose jobs don’t fit into the confines of typical day care,” Pace said. “And once a child gets schoolage, there’s no assistance to help with the cost of before or after-school care or the summer when they need care full time. If you have no family to help, it’s really difficult.

“It just really doesn’t make sense.”

IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT CARE, IT’S ABOUT QUALITY CARE

To be productive at work, families also say they need to know that care providers offer a safe, nurturing environment that supports their child’s development and early learning.

Those skills come at a cost often set much higher than minimum wage. Higher employer salaries mean greater expenses for child care facility operators. Bigger outlays mean more costly tuition for parents.

“It’s kind of a vicious cycle,” said Cindy Ligon, a longtime child care program director in Middle Tennessee and presidentelect of the Tennessee Association for Children’s Early Education.

Ligon, who is director of McKendree Daycare in downtown Nashville, said the average salary for her child care employees is $34,000. Most are college educated, she said, but they are “living in a city where it costs $80,000 to live comfortably.”

Ligon said 75% to 80% of the day care’s budget goes to salary and benefits, and still child care workers are some of the lowest paid in the country. There is a link between quality of care and the education and wages of care givers, she said.

“I really think parents are in a tough spot, too, because if we pay our staff a decent working wage we have to pass that cost on to someone,” Ligon said.

The question is, she said, what can be done?

“We’re seeing child care deserts popping up because [child care facilities] are closing their doors, and we are not keeping up with the demand,” Ligon said. “I really do think some government and private sector partnership is going to be the answer to the problem.”

‘I WANT HIM TO HAVE A GOOD LIFE’

For Campbell, finally finding affordable child care for her son was a “lifesaver.”

At Head Start, normal care was only from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., but there was an option for aftercare until 5:30 p.m. each day at a cost of $50 per week, which her voucher covered.

By doing that, Campbell was able to return to work. Now, she holds a position as a project manager for a general contractor doing apartment renovations, and her 6-year-old is in Metro Nashville Public Schools.

Not having a job isn’t an option. Her son’s future depends on it.

“I want him to have a good life,” she said, “and I have to work to make that happen. I have to support us. I am all he has.”