The affordability of high-quality childcare is a crucial factor influencing family economic security and the broader economy. As parents with young children attempt to balance workforce participation and caregiving responsibilities, child care costs emerge as a major financial hurdle. It’s not just low-income families that need help paying for child care; working and middle-class families have to devote a large proportion of their income to child care. NC’s average infant child care cost of $12,000 surpasses NC’s average in-state college tuition. A burden that is multiplied for families who have to meet costs for multiple children.
Subsidizing child care is one important part of the solution to unaffordable child care. Subsidizing child care is not a hand out, it is a hand up–to be eligible to receive a subsidy, a parent must work, attend school, or engage in training.