Illinois child care costs are among the highest in the U.S.

[July 05, 2023]  By Zeta Cross | The Center Square contributor

(The Center Square) – Illinois parents pay among the highest child care costs in the nation, a new study from the Annie E. Casey Foundation has found. The average single mother spends more than a third of her paycheck on child care.

The high cost is impacting everyone, from parents to employers. For one toddler to attend an Illinois child care center costs parents $1,039 a month, the Casey Foundation study found. If parents can find a home care option, the cost runs about $745 a month.

Making matters worse is inflation which has driven up the cost of child care, said Danette Connors, chief Youth & Family Potential Officer for the YWCA in Chicago.

“The YWCA has a family assistance program that helps low-income families pay for child care,” Connors said.

The problem is that low-income families have been priced out of child care options, Connors said.

The YWCA works with child care providers and helps them find resources. There are a lot of components that go into making a child care business work, Connors said. The shortage of child care teachers is the toughest challenge for providers. Child care workers can make more money and find jobs with benefits elsewhere in the private sector.

“It’s an intense job with very low wages so we are seeing more and more people leaving … to go to Amazon. We hear a lot of that,” Connors said.

There are twice as many children ages 0-6 with all parents in the workforce as there are licensed child care slots, a 2022 report by the Illinois Child Care for All Coalition found.

“The lowest income families will never be able to compete in a market like that,” Connors said.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker has done “an exceptional job” of providing state grants to help support child care businesses, Connors said.

“With Smart Start Illinois, his new budget, he’s put through quite a few different resources for child care providers to build capacity back in,” she said.

A new $130 million grant program from Smart Start is designed to strengthen child care workers’ compensation with an aim of stabilizing the field. However, Conners said the government can’t solve the problem alone.

“A more publicly funded child care structure is important, but it is a partnership between corporations and agencies and the government that is going to uplift this field,” Connors said.

Worker turnover due to lack of child care is a billion-dollar problem for businesses. A U.S. Chamber of Commerce study found that businesses lose $3 billion in revenue annually due to employee absenteeism as the result of child care breakdowns.

Beyond getting people to work, early child care and learning from birth to the age of 5 gets children ready for school, Connors said. Very young children are learning at a faster pace than at any other age.

“If they don’t have high quality early learning experiences, they are going to get to kindergarten and be way behind their peers. We are going to end up paying for these inequities one way or the other,” Connors said.