Solutions needed: Families, employers under strain due to lack of childcare

For years, we’ve watched neighbors close their family childcare businesses, young families struggle to find a single open slot for their child to receive care so both parents can work, and employers wonder why they can’t keep workers on the job.

The Early Childcare Crisis

The story is familiar to parents and grandparents: there are too few childcare providers in our area who can accommodate children under three years old. Those still in operation are stretched thin and their staff (including founders and owners) of skilled educators are underpaid. 

Caring for infants and toddlers requires significant, dedicated attention, and more knowledge and training than older kids. Standards and regulations reflect this, limiting the number of infants and toddlers per staff member, and the skilled care they provide deserves appropriate compensation. 

However, wages in rural Minnesota are often not enough to compensate. Providers are “paying ourselves less, subsidizing the true cost of childcare by sacrificing our own pay” Lydia Pietruszewski, Director of Pine Pals Child Care Centers, Bemidji, shares. Childcare workers’ families are more than twice as likely to live in poverty nationally (11.8%) as other workers’ families (5.8%).

According to the Economic Policy Institute:

• The average annual cost of infant care in Minnesota is $23,725. That’s $1,977 per month.

• Child care for a 4-year-old costs $18,798, or $1,566 each month.

• Infant care for one child would take up 18.1% of a median Minnesota family’s income.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), child care is affordable if it costs no more than 7% of a family’s income. By this standard, only 6 % of Minnesota families can afford infant care.

The Hidden Cost to Communities

When care isn’t available, parents cut hours, turn down promotions, or step out of the workforce altogether, taking spending power and tax contributions with them. For small local employers, especially in agriculture, health care, and Main Street businesses, that means a smaller candidate pool and constantly re-hiring and re-training.

Meaningful child care reform that capped families’ child care expenses at 7% of their income would:

• Save a typical Minnesota family with an infant $14,549 on child care costs

• Free up 13.6% of typical families’ (post–child care) annual income 

• Allow 24,549 more parents to work

• Expand Minnesota’s economy by 8%. That’s $4.1 billion of new economic activity. (Economic Policy Institute)

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Smart Economic Development

Though Trump’s administration has attacked Head Start and other educational programs because of the “dangers” of social and emotional learning, when children lack this strong support and positive social relationships in the first three years of their life, they are more likely later in life to drop out of school, rely on welfare, and become involved in crime. 

High-quality early care and education builds the foundation for children to learn and work effectively with others by practicing emotional regulation, language skills, and problem-solving. Applied across a generation, this brings better health, education, and economic outcomes. 

UNICEF found that $1 of investment in early childcare and education can generate up to $17 to the world in return, generated by higher worker productivity, reduced crime, and less need for government assistance.

What Real Solutions Could Look Like

The campaign Childcare for All MN advocates for every family to access free or low-cost, high-quality care close to home, without shifting costs to working families or people without children. 

If we are really “family-oriented,” our budgets should orient toward caring for families. Early childcare investment brings one of the highest public returns of any economic development strategy available to us. What is the public return on missiles dropped in foreign countries, that ripple through the supply chain and make living here more expensive?

Companies like Google, Meta, and Amazon profit billions of dollars by harvesting our online activity to collect data and sell targeted ads, and we never see a dime of it. Minnesota loses millions of dollars annually to corporations using tax loopholes to benefit from our public goods without paying their share into them. 

There are many methods of reform that our government could use to prioritize care for our children and our future over foreign and corporate interests. A “Great Start for All Minnesota Children” Task Force has already conducted years of research and published their report and recommendations for how to solve the crisis. This task force was bipartisan because this is a bipartisan issue—we need to elect lawmakers who prioritize the well-being of taxpayers here in rural Minnesota. 

Our towns can’t afford another decade of “studying the issue” while centers close and families leave. There are so many childcare providers from every type of care system who are dedicated to understanding the system that is failing us and developing solutions that put kids first. Legislators must include these providers at the table and listen to their experienced perspective when laws and regulations are written. 

What You Can Do 

This fall, every voter in rural Minnesota has a chance to send a message. Before the general election, find out where your local candidates stand on childcare. Are they committed to working with childcare experts to solve the shortages? Do they support making care affordable and stabilizing provider pay? Are they on board with building majority support for a strong Childcare for All bill in the 2027 legislative session?

Learn more at Childcareforallmn.com and CassCoDFL.org

By Barbara Keinath, Longville,

Cass DFL Secretary