Child Care Will Be on the Ballot in Several U.S. States
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Here's your money briefing for Thursday, October 31st. I'm J.R. Whelan for The Wall Street Journal. The shortage of affordable and accessible child care has left many families with limited options. Next week, voters in several states will be asked to foot the bill to help ease the funding gap.
The broader economic picture is that a lack of affordable child care is just keeping people out of the workforce, and that is stopping the economy from growing locally.
We'll talk to Wall Street Journal economics reporter Harriet Torrey after the break.
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What problem is prompting local ballot measures for childcare funding?
To address economic struggles in the industry, child care is on the ballot in many counties across the country. Wall Street Journal economics reporter Harriet Torrey joins me. Harriet, under the ballot measures, how would child care be funded?
It's a little different in every place. These are initiatives that are taking place at local levels. So for instance, in Travis County in Texas, which is the county that most of Austin falls into, they are proposing an increase in property taxes of two and a half cents per $100 valuations. For the average homeowner, that would amount to about $130 a year in extra property taxes. And all of that money will go towards providing affordable childcare. And there are some other initiatives in other places as well. There's one in Sonoma County in California. and St. Paul, Minnesota. They're all a little bit different, but essentially they're suggesting raising property or sales taxes locally by small amounts to put money towards child care for those areas.
In your story, you write a lot about the situation in Texas. What's significant about what's going on there?
Well, Texas is a very interesting part of the country because it has a high population. It's seen extremely strong growth in recent years. And it has a very high fertility rate, one of the highest in the nation. So there are a lot of babies in Texas. There are a lot of people who need childcare. The demand far outstrips the supply. And that's especially the case for affordable childcare, subsidized childcare, which is available. But there is an extremely long waitlist in the Austin area. It takes about two years to get off the waitlist. The idea is that this initiative will provide more money to get more people off the wait list, provide more subsidized care, and that will help people to go back to work, especially in blue collar industries.
What do critics of state funding say about this?
Many people ask the question, why should I have to pay for somebody else's childcare? A lot of people don't have kids, so it's reasonable for them to ask, why is this falling on me? But many people see that the broader economic picture is that a lack of affordable childcare is just keeping people out of the workforce, and that is stopping the economy from growing locally. There are some critics of these types of measures. The childcare industry, part of its problem is that there is, of course, a lot of regulation in that industry. You have to have a certain number of teachers ratio per kids. And some people say that some of the regulations are too onerous and they can help businesses by making it easier to operate rather than bringing in state subsidies.
What are the political implications of the broad idea of government even getting involved in this?
The debate has really changed since COVID. Childcare has always been a problem. It's always been hard for people to find reliable childcare and it's always been expensive because this is a business where it is very labor intensive. During COVID, childcare shut down en masse. A lot of people lost their jobs and then it became hard to rehire because many of the people who had been working in childcare could go out and get
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