By DEBORAH E. LANS
GHENT–The French have an expression that applies with unfortunate accuracy to child care: the more things change, the more they stay the same. While the state has (among other things) provided additional financial support to parents to defray the costs of child care, child care in Columbia and Greene counties continues to be difficult to find, expensive and often ill-suited to the needs of working parents.
Given that 75% of brain growth and 85% of intellect, personality and social skills develop before age five, “it is imperative that we invest in our youngest children long before they enter school,” according to the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy in Albany — a view that is universally shared by experts.
The public agrees. The 2024 Empire State Poll found that 74% of respondents would support public funding to create a universal (free) child care program in New York.
Locally, the need seems clear. For example, Kindergarten Readiness Data for the Hudson City School District found that only 38% of its students were considered kindergarten-ready, meaning that children are challenged to succeed from the start. Readiness figures improve when early childhood programs use intentional techniques to prepare children to learn.
Yet, in the face of strong public support and recognition, the sector is continuing to flail locally. In its 2024 Overview, Child Care Connections, a program of Family of Woodstock, summarized the situation in Columbia, Greene and Ulster counties this way: “There has been a crisis in child care which has been worsening over the last 10 years. Some of the current factors for the decline in child care programs are: increased and continually changing regulations; children being sent home from school/child care for any mild illness causing parents to jeopardize employment; [the] increasing cost of child care…[and] the need for non-traditional hours.”
In the Twin Counties more programs closed than opened in 2023. Worse, there were few applicants to open new programs.
The poor wages that prevail in the sector and the thin profit margins available to program owners are major factors that discourage people from entering the sector. Indeed, CSCCE reported recently that nationally 13% of early childhood educators receive only poverty-level wages and 43% of the families of early educators rely on some form of public assistance. In New York, the percentage earning poverty wages is even higher; it is 19.3%. Within an already-dismal wage profile, Black early childhood educators earn about $8,000 less per year than their white peers.
Given the importance of the work they do, the level of compensation afforded to child care workers might be deemed criminal. Out of 750 occupations tracked by the federal government, early child educators earn less than 740 of those occupations; they are in the bottom 2% and earn less than dressing room attendants, bell hops and garage attendants. Moreover, their wages are rising more slowly than wages in other industries such as retail and fast food, to which child care workers are often compelled to move to support their families. According to CSCCE’s just-released study, “despite their important work, complex skills and considerable experience, early educators’ working conditions currently undermine their well-being and create devastating financial insecurity well into retirement age. In turn, these conditions lead to high turnover rates and teacher staffing shortages, which limit the availability of care for families.”
Moreover, while New York State has provided significant funding for the sector, the efforts have not yielded any permanent solutions geared to better wages and profit margins. The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) in Berkeley has developed an Early Childhood Workforce Index to assess state-level action in policy areas that impact the sector. In the key area of enhancing compensation and financial relief for providers, CSCCE found that New York’s efforts have “stalled.”
The unavailability of child care, and the rigidity of regulations that govern subsidies and discourage new entrants to the field, have impacts well beyond the parents who utilize such care. A September 2024 federal “jobs report” from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the share of Americans who were absent from work due to child care difficulties hit an all-time high in August, even as employment in child care declined. In other words, the staffing shortages that are seen throughout the economy are worsened by the lack of affordable child care and the availability of care at the times when it is needed.
A recent study by Cornell University’s Labor Relations school similarly found that 40% of New Yorkers were forced to forgo employment opportunities because of child-care related challenges, primarily due to either the unaffordability of care or the lack of available seats.
Many in the field, including Child Care Connections locally, urge that group family care is an important component to foster, because such programs offer advantages not always available in larger day care settings: a “homey” environment usually within the child’s neighborhood, more flexible hours that can accommodate families’ irregular work and school schedules, and the ability for children of different ages to mingle.
Moreover, in rural communities like Columbia and Greene counties, the availability of such programs enhances access; a community may lack the numbers to support a larger child care center and group care may meet the needs. Access to neighborhood care also minimizes necessary travel for parents.
What the CSCCE report notes in the context of workforce issues can be said of the entire industry: the problems “are not inevitable, but a product of policy choices that have consistently let down” all those affected. Among the key policy changes needed in New York are ones that make the state’s generous subsidies to parents to offset child care costs more workable.
Currently, bills are “sitting on the Governor’s desk” that passed both houses of the state legislature with broad bi-partisan support and that would chip away at the problems. A “decoupling” bill would eliminate significant flaws in the subsidy structure. Currently, subsidies are tied to the exact hours a parent works or attends school. This linkage is irrational, burdening or disqualifying parents who work part-time or have rotating or inconsistent schedules; precluding them from shopping, running errands or attending medical appointments without their children in tow; and requiring child care providers to track the precise arrival and departure times of every child instead of providing them care as they come and go.
The state broadened the eligibility of parents for subsidies to pay for care this year, but utilization of the subsidies has been lower than expected; it is believed that this is, in part, the result of work and earnings restrictions which “decoupling” would address. (The lack of capacity is the principal other cause.)
“Decoupling” is also viewed as an “equity” issue. Payment or attendance at child care for private pay families is not dependent on work hours, so why should other families be restricted?
The governor has twice before vetoed “decoupling” measures. It remains to be seen whether she will do so again.
A second bill would end New York’s seemingly backwards practice of denying economic assistance to families whose earnings are less than minimum wage, denying help to paying fees to those who may need it most.
The other key piece of legislation awaiting signature would establish “presumptive eligibility” for subsidies to qualifying parents. Currently, financial assistance only becomes available after the agencies administering the subsidy programs process applications. While state law requires processing to occur within 30 days, the deadline is not always met. And, during the 30-day wait time, parents often lose job opportunities and hard-to-find child care slots may close. (Child Care Connections reports that slots often open and close in a matter of hours.)
A recent federal rules change allows federal child care funds to be used by states to cover a period of presumptive eligibility, thereby removing a barrier to immediate coverage of child care costs for families while the administrators determine whether the families meet the requirements for subsidies, eliminating this bureaucratic barrier. The specific purpose of the federal change was to encourage states to enact presumptive eligibility rules. Again, the governor has yet to sign the legislations that would follow the federal lead.
For more information about the local child care system and potential solutions, see the articles in The Columbia Paper issues of April 4, April 18, May 2, May 16, May 30, and October 31 – all of which are available through the paper’s digital editions, available at theupstater.com.
To contact Reporter Deborah Lans, email deborahlans@icloud.com.
