(WJAR) — Day care waitlists are widening in Rhode Island and it’s forcing families to make some tough choices.
With a 400-person waitlist, Beautiful Beginnings Director Khadijah Lewis Khan has seen it firsthand.
“The number of spaces available to families has been reduced,” she said. “Many of us have a closed classroom or classrooms that aren’t operating at full capacity.”
The issue is so pronounced that Lewis Khan recommends families start calling day cares as soon as they learn they’re expecting.
“We recommend families to get on multiple waiting lists just so they have options,” she said.
It wasn’t always this way.
The pandemic rocked the childcare industry, leading to fewer workers, closed classrooms and growing wait lists.
Years later, the childcare industry hasn’t returned to normal.
Lewis Khan said Beautiful Beginnings in Providence lost six to seven staff members during the pandemic.
“Parents do seem to be surprised or disappointed when the waiting list is so long,” she said.
For many families, the issue has forced parents to leave the labor force or find a different way to juggle a baby and a job.
University of Rhode Island Assistant Professor and economist Cruz Bueno went through it herself after having her first daughter.
“I was on wait lists, nobody ever called,” she said.
Bueno could not find affordable childcare, which only worsened during the pandemic.
“I would find myself teaching online, you know 30 students with their cameras on and my camera on, and I would be breast-feeding,” Bueno said.
Eventually she managed to enroll her daughter into one day of day care and had to return to the classroom without a concrete plan.
“I had to take her to class with me. It’s been an eye-opening year to say the least,” she said.
CHILD CARE COST CRISIS
The NBC 10 I-Team took a deeper dive into the problem.
The childcare industry has lost over 50,000 workers since the pandemic, sending costs soaring for both the facilities and parents.
According to the Whitehouse Council of Economic Advisors, childcare prices rose 210% from 1990 to 2019, yet the average childcare worker in 2022 made under $30,000 a year.
“Even working at Target can pay more than working in a childcare program,” Leanne Barrett of R.I. Kids Count said.
Childcare workers received retention bonuses through federal COVID funds for years, but Barrett said that ended this summer.
“They are anticipating that providers will struggle probably more than they are struggling now,” she said.
The high costs of operating a day care center and keep staff members also falls onto families.
The Department of Health and Human Services recommends parents spend 7% of their income on childcare, but for many parents, it’s far more than that.
When Bueno had a second child, she began paying $30,000 a year for day care, more than 20% of her income.
“We were hoping to buy a home. We are still looking, but these very high costs have severely shifted our financial plans,” Bueno said.
LEGISLATIVE CHANGES
In the last General Assembly session in Rhode Island, Senator Sandra Cano spearheaded several initiatives designed to make childcare more affordable.
While some measures passed, many failed in the House, including a bill to make childcare worker retention bonuses permanent.
“If this is not prioritized, we will see employers leave the state, we probably will see early educators, go to neighboring states with higher wages and more benefits,” Cano said.
The domino effect wouldn’t just impact the labor force in Rhode Island, but also families who are searching for childcare.
“Why are those waiting list there? Because the childcare centers don’t have the capacity to open more classrooms because they don’t have the reimbursement rate that they need to be able to cover the costs,” Cano said.
The General Assembly did pass a measure that’ll increase reimbursements rates by 5%, which Barrett said is a small step forward in a much larger issue.
“We have a lot of problems and the route of it is a lack of money and attention to the need,” Barrett said.
State lawmakers are working to address the cost on parents.
This past legislative session, they increased the income threshold for families to get help paying for childcare.
Previously, a family of four had to make $62,400 to qualify for assistance. That has now been raised to under $93,600.
“What we’ve done is only a temporary fix,” Cano said. “The reality is we need to look at all the budgetary implications. Not only do we need to take care of early educators, but also the childcare centers and the providers that haven’t received an increase in many years.”
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Publish date : 2024-09-05 07:49:00
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