Introduction

The true cost of child care in the title of this study refers to the actual monetary costs of providing the services of quality child care, as contrasted to the price that is paid for child care (the market rate), and contrasted to the subsidy, the public assistance that means-tested families receive for child care. Public subsidies, the primary form of public support for child care in the U.S., are determined as a percentile of market rates.

More fundamentally, however, the true costs of the existing child care system in Erie County, in New York and around the country, are much larger. They are the social and economic costs of persistent racial, gender and economic inequality; lack of access to child care services for many families; an entire sector of low-wage work; forfeiture of workforce participation among parents; and loss of the human potential that derives from quality early childhood development and education. These costs may be harder to measure—some are immeasurable—but they inform the growing consensus that America’s child care system is not working for the families, workers, and providers directly involved, nor is it working for society and the economy as a whole.

This Phase Two of a collaborative action research report illuminates both kinds of costs: current operational monetary costs per child at the enterprise or institutional level, and indicators of broader social costs of the existing child care system itself in Erie County and New York State. Undertaken by Cornell ILR Buffalo Co-Lab and Erie County’s Live Well Erie Emergency Child Care Task Force, the year-long project has provided vital empirical information for advocates, care providers, child care service organizations, and local government agencies, as well as to New York State elected officials through the 2022 budget debates and decisions.

The immediate goals of this project were:

• to determine the actual true cost of quality child care by modality in Erie County,
• to compare those actual costs with New York State Office of Child and Family Services (OCSF) market rate price of care,
• to compare with the NYS/Erie County Department of Social Services (DSS) subsidy rates,
• further, to compare what the actual true costs would be if all child care workers earned a living wage,
• and finally, to provide the data and analysis to County and State officials for consideration in public policy and budgets negotiations in 2022.

In both purpose and methodology, collaboration was central to this action research project. The widely representative and agile Live Well Erie Emergency Child Care Task Force and applied researchers of Cornell University ILR Buffalo Co-Lab worked as a team to compile reliable and valid information and to share the findings with public officials and stakeholders in a timely manner. Proudly representing public institutions, ILR and Erie County staff approached and managed the project in the public interest. It was funded by Erie County, and supplemented by State funds allocated to ILR Buffalo Co-Lab with the support of WNY legislative representatives. The ILR research team included staff whose experience with advancing the local child care ecosystem dates back to the community collaboration that produced the 2006 report, Buffalo Child Care Means Business.

The methods employed in this True Cost project included a professional on-line survey of all 499 Erie County child care providers; four in-depth focus groups with providers by care modality that further examined costs, challenges, and opportunities for improving child care in Erie County; and compilation and analysis of public geographic and economic data on the local child care industry and workforce. The project was guided by a Steering Committee of core partners that met regularly, and an Advisory Committee of the entire Live Well Erie Emergency Child Care Task Force, which meets monthly.

Phase One of this report was a preliminary account presenting the data and information most directly related to comparing true costs with market rate and subsidies, including the gap between current wages and living wages for workers in the industry. That report was issued in early January 2022 and used throughout State budget talks to advocate for more adequate funding. This final Phase Two report supplements that data and analysis with the latest public economic data available and additional updated contextual industry and workforce information statewide.

When COVID-19 shut down much of the economy in March 2020, the “state of emergency” in everyday life was vastly more far-reaching than such a declaration of public action usually portends. Across the country, this dire emergency divided the workforce into “essential” and “nonessential” workers and exposed fundamental inequities and underlying functional problems in the economy as a whole. Suddenly, the “care economy” was of more urgent collective concern. Child care’s role undergirding the entire economy became more obvious.

In this setting, Erie County took bold action, creating the Emergency Child Care Task Force within Live Well Erie, a strategic equity initiative launched in 2019. The Task Force, chaired by Marie Cannon, Commissioner of Department of Social Services, and Maria Whyte, Deputy County Executive, was made up of fifty-seven members representing a diversity of institutional and family day care providers, local government and education officials, community health care leaders, child care support services, foundations, unions, employers, women’s organizations, social service agencies, and child care activist organizations. The members represented decades of experience in the complex world of child care—expertise they shared with deep passion for a better system that works for all children, parents, the profession, and the economy. They set to work on concrete steps toward that vision.

Working closely with child care and education partners, Erie County was the first and only county in New York State to use U.S. CARES Act funding to support child care, providing funding directly to providers and expanding the amount and eligibility for child care subsidies. CARES funds were also used to create Virtual Learning Support Centers where children were supervised in a safe and healthy environment while engaged in the remote learning required by their school district. For the Virtual Learning Centers, set up with 28 school districts, Erie County won a 2021 Achievement Award from the National Association of Counties; and Deputy County Executive Maria Whyte won a 2021 Excellence in Public Service Award, Honorary Mention in recognition of “her extraordinary work with the Emergency Childcare Task Force and reframing childcare as an important economic development issue on behalf of the people of Erie County.”

The methodologies utilized in this action research project amplified the voices of child care providers and expanded the collaborative network for progressive policy change in New York State. Beyond the broad representation of the Emergency Child Care Task Force, the project benefited from the active involvement of NYS Assemblymember Monica Wallace and Erie County Legislator Lisa Chimera, Chair of the Health and Human Services Committee. Erie County’s approach of quantifying the gap between market rate and true costs of care was appreciated by the New York State Association of Counties, and the study’s findings were presented to their organization as well in legislative hearings during the NYS budget process. The Task Force supported public programs on child care policies and funding and, in collaboration with the WNY Child Care Action Team and Empire State Campaign for Child Care, hosted legislative leaders including Senator Jabari Brisport in rallies in Buffalo.

Drawing on past collaborations at Cornell University, this project connected Tompkins County officials, a parent’s organization, and experts to share research and policy insights with Erie County’s initiatives. Cornell ILR Buffalo Co-Lab and the Worker Institute hosted a public webinar of national authorities and reform activists.

Phase One’s primary findings of the glaring gaps between subsidies and true costs, and between current wages and living wages were publicly reported and also presented in a zoom forum with WNY’s state legislative delegation. With a groundswell of public support, the New York State legislature substantially increased state funding for child care in the FY 2023 budget, doubling the FY 2022 amount over four years.

Still far from a universal and equitable system of child care as a public good, these grassroots and local government actions will prove critical in future progress at the local, state, and national levels. This report reveals serious systemic problems that require transformation and illustrates by example how local collaborative efforts are key to devising equitable and sustainable solutions.

Erie County as Study Area

Home to the state’s second largest city of Buffalo, Erie County (EC) is situated on New York’s western edge, adjacent to Lake Erie. After reaching a peak of just over 1.1 million residents in 1970, EC lost population for four consecutive decades, bottoming out at roughly 919,000 residents in 2010. Following that point, however, U.S. Census data recorded a net increase of almost 40,000 persons from 2010 to 2020, with the population projected to continue rising for at least the next decade.[1]

Erie County’s recent growth and population change have not alleviated concerns over economic security. A 2020 study of housing cost-burden and tenant exploitation found that nearly half (48%) of households in Erie County meet federal government definitions of “low-income” after accounting for family size and family income.[2] Increases in housing costs have far outpaced inflation-adjusted increases in workers’ wages in the Buffalo-Niagara region since at least 2012. Throughout most of the county, single-family home prices grew three to four-times faster than wages between 2012 and 2020, with most multi-family prices rising four- to six-times faster than local wages during that interval.[3]

As a household’s affordability gap – measured by the differential rates at which wages and housing costs increase – widens over time, it loses the ability to pay for other necessities, including child care. Thus, the patterns taking shape in EC have implications for the extent to which working families with children will be able to afford child care in the future. Those trends compound the current problems of accessibility and affordability of quality care.

In this Phase Two Report, data on the child care industry and workforce are analyzed, where possible and relevant, for both Erie County and New York State in order to situate findings from Erie County in statewide patterns and trends.

Figure 1.  Geography of licensed child care providers in Erie County as of December 2021.

Industry Profile: Child Care Establishments and Employment

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, employment in Child Day Care Services establishments (North American Industrial Classification Code 6244) in New York State (NYS) was increasing at about 2.1% per year for roughly two decades. Specifically, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in 2001 there were just under 51,000 employees working in approximately 4,000 child day care establishments across the state. By 2019, those numbers had grown to a high point of 76,200 workers in almost 6,020 establishments.

Although it is too early to say exactly how the pandemic will impact the NYS child care industry in the long-term, in the short run, much of the steady employment growth of the last decade was undone in equally rapid fashion by COVID-19 and ensuing economic crises. Final BLS figures for 2020 reported just 61,166 workers in 5,929 child day care service establishments in that year – a year-over-year loss of more than 15,000 jobs (-20%), essentially erasing the last ten years of growth and putting the industry back to 2010 employment levels. See Figure 2.

Year-end (annual average) data for 2021 are still not available at the time of this writing (May 2022), however child day care services employment levels in NYS for the first three quarters of 2021 have been released. In the first quarter of 2021, child care employment ticked up to roughly 63,500 jobs (up from the 2020 year-end tally of 61,166). By the second quarter, employment in the industry reached 64,674 jobs. However, the third quarter recorded a slight drop, to 63,210 jobs. Thus, the three-quarter average employment for the first nine months of 2021 was 63,795 jobs. While the industry appears to be slowly regaining jobs lost to COVID-19, employment in NYS child care is still only at about 80% of pre-pandemic (2019) levels.

Figure 2.

The situation in Erie County echoes the statewide trends described above, with two notable exceptions. First, whereas child care employment in NYS experienced steady growth for almost two consecutive decades, the number of jobs in child day care services in EC fluctuated up and down – staying between 3,000 and 3,500 – for almost a decade-and-a-half from 2001 through 2015. Then, beginning in 2015, employment in the industry rose quickly to a high point of 3,897 jobs in 2018. The second key difference between NYS and EC is that child care employment in the latter area began to fall before the COVID-19 pandemic. Namely, after reaching is peak of almost 3,900 employees in 2018, the number of child care jobs dropped by 10%, to just over 3,500 in 2019. The pandemic then exacerbated that initial downward pressure – the industry recorded a year-over-year loss of almost 400 more jobs from 2019 to 2020, an 11% drop. While early data (three-quarter average) for 2021 are showing signs of partial recovery from COVID-19 – with about 140 jobs gained between 2020 and 2021 – the industry remains at about 80% of the peak employment levels it recorded in 2018.  See Figure 3.

Figure 3.

The preceding trends in child care employment in NYS and EC suggest that if care services were not already undersupplied before the pandemic, they almost certainly are now. A contracted and slow-to-recover child care workforce means fewer individuals providing care services, which, in turn, means that fewer children are receiving such services.

It is worth noting that one potential reason why the child care workforce is slow to recover jobs lost to COVID-19 (and, in EC’s case, jobs lost in the year before the pandemic), despite fast-recovery and pressures to return to work in many other sectors, is the industry’s shockingly low wages. While more will be said on wages in the next section, the BLS data queried in this subsection offer a quick glimpse into changes in annual average wages for employees in working in child day care services establishments.

Observe in Figure 4 below that, as was the case throughout the economy, average employee wages in EC child care experienced upward pressure during the pandemic, growing from $22,104 to $24,644 between 2019 and 2020 (after adjusting for inflation). However, data from the (average of the) first three quarters of 2021 show that mean wages are again falling, having dropped to $23,972 in 2021 dollars. The implication is that jobs gained over the past year pay below-average wages. By contrast, the average wage for all jobs in EC continued to inch up from 2020 through the third quarter of 2021 – clocking in at almost $58,300. Compared to that figure – again, the average annual wage for all jobs in EC – it is evident that child care in EC is low-wage work. Average wages in the child care industry are just two-fifths of average wages in the countywide economy.

Figure 4.

Licensed Child Care Provider Capacity

According to open data from the New York State Office of Child and Family Services (OCFS),[4] there were 15,068 licensed child care providers throughout the state as of early May 2022. OCFS records show that, combined, those providers are licensed to care for 643,601 total children. In EC, OCFS reports 484 providers that are licensed to care for 28,299 children. (Note: between November 2021 when the provider survey for this project was conducted and May 2022, the number of licensed EC providers represented in the OCFS dataset decreased from 499 to 484.) Of course, the prime question is: how well-matched is this supply of licensed care to demand?

Answering that question is complicated by the fact that no data exist showing how many households demand, or wish to access, licensed child care services. To overcome this obstacle, prior research has compared the total capacity of licensed care facilities in a given location to the total population of children in the age groups served by those facilities.[5] This analysis adopts and also meaningfully extends that approach, by comparing licensed provider capacity not only to relevant total child populations, but to what is termed herein relevant “target” child populations. This report defines target child populations as all children who (a) are in the age ranges served by licensed providers (infant to 13-years-old[6]) and (b) live in households where all the adult members of the household are employed and working. Both populations – total and target – can be determined from person- and household-level records in the U.S. Census American Community Survey (ACS) Public Use Microdata Samples (PUMS) datasets.

Affirming findings from the Center for American Progress (CAP), licensed care facilities in NYS only have enough capacity to serve one in five children in the overall population. More precisely, recall that child care providers in NYS are licensed to accommodate 643,601 children between zero and 13 years of age. Across the state, there are roughly 3.14 million children in those age groups, meaning that the current supply of licensed child care only covers 20.5% of the total population. See Figure 5.

Zooming into the target population, there are 2.05 million children in NYS who live in households where all the adult members work. Thus, even for this subset of the total population, NYS is severely under-capacitated, able to accommodate just 31.4% of the target population. The following graph breaks these numbers down for three selected geographies: (1) Erie County, (2) New York City [Bronx, Kings, New York, Queens, and Richmond Counties], and (3) the remainder of the state (for lack of a better term, the rest of “upstate” New York). It further breaks the data out by two selected age groups: (i) infants and toddlers, age zero to three years, and (ii) pre-Kindergarten (pre-K) through school-aged children (SAC), age four to 13 years. Note that data on infant and toddler capacity for the five New York City Counties are not available in the OCFS public dataset.

Figure 5.

Compared to NYS as a whole, which has enough capacity to serve 20.5% of the total child care population and 31.5% of the target population, EC’s licensed care capacity appears somewhat low. Namely, EC providers are licensed for enough slots to serve just 20% of the total population and 28.9% of the target population of children. However, the preceding graph makes clear that the statewide mismatch between supply and demand is influenced by New York City (NYC), which has above-average levels of licensed care. Removing NYC from the analysis reveals that, relative to the rest of upstate, Erie County’s paltry supply of licensed care (vis-à-vis potential demand) is actually in the upper end of the distribution.

Put another way, insufficient supply of licensed care is a statewide issue. The map below (Figure 6.) adds slightly more geographic precision to this claim, where county-level OCFS data on total capacity are merged with ACS PUMS data on the size of each area’s target population. As intimated in the preceding graph, Erie County falls in the upper half of the distribution. Still, the County’s providers only have license to accommodate fewer than three in ten children whose adult household members all work.

Figure 6.

These findings strongly demonstrate that licensed child care in Erie County is not – and is nowhere close to being – universally accessible.

Brief Profile of Likely Child Care Demanders

In pursuit of equitable and universally accessible child care, the demand side of the equation is as important as the supply or capacity side. The likely child care demand in the analysis below is calculated using PUMS data, defining and identifying that segment of the population as workers who have one or more children of care age (zero to 13 years) and who live in a household where all the adult members of the home work.

Roughly 2.25 million workers throughout NYS fall into this population – nearly a quarter (24%) of statewide civilian employees. Figure 7 below breaks these numbers out by selected geography. Despite the coarseness of the spatial resolution involved, the graph shows that the size of the “likely care demand population” as a percentage of all workers is remarkably consistent across the state, with 23% of workers in EC and NYC, and 25% of workers in the remainder of upstate. Moreover, these figures are presumably undercounts of the actual care demand, given that many households with non-working adults still need child care services.

Figure 7.

The upshot is that, without child care, a massive chunk of economic activity in NYS and EC would quickly come to halt. As shown in the final pair of figures in this section below, there is not a single industry in EC from which working families with care-aged children are less than 18% of the workforce. Shown in Figure 8, the range is between 18 and 28% of workers in all major economic industries in EC fall into the “likely child care demand universe.” The County’s leading employment sector – health and social services – is near the top at 27%.

Figure 8.

The occupational word cloud in Figure 9 drives home the point that child care affects all types of people. In Erie County, educators and health professionals are the most frequent types of individuals raising children in households where all the adults hold jobs; but that struggle is a widespread one. It affects people in all occupations, across all sectors. In other words, it is a struggle that unifies. It touches the working families that have to compete with one another for undersupplied care in the current system. It touches the providers that are currently racing to the bottom to supply care. And, perhaps most consequentially for transforming the existing system, it touches the economic actors – the firms and employers – who depend on working parents and guardians for a steady supply of labor in all sectors of the economy. At bottom, the widespread need for child care across the economy is evidence of a mismatch between the distribution of child care costs, which are borne almost entirely by individual households, and child care benefits, which extend well beyond the families receiving care.

Figure 9.

Occupational Profile: Child Care Workers

U.S. Census ACS PUMS occupational data reveal persons who self-identify as “Child Care Workers” to the Census Bureau when asked about their employment. There are 3,394 such persons represented in the most recent PUMS dataset for EC, roughly the same number as the BLS child care employment data summarized above. Of these self-identified child care workers, 84% state that they work for employers, while the remaining 16% identify as self-employed. This latter group is presumably where most Family Day Care (FDC) and Group Family Day Care (GFDC) providers are situated.

Just over half of EC child care workers report working at least 30 hours per week, which is taken to be “full-time work” for the purposes of this report. (Figure 11.) The proportion, nearly half, of child care workers who work part time even when there is a serious shortage of early care givers and educators is another sign of a labor market that is not working. Because wages and benefits are so low in this profession, it cannot attract fulltime workers, leaving providers, especially family and group family facilities, to look to college students and others who can only work part-time to staff their enterprises. Like education in general, early child care educators also often work unpaid hours, expect to prepare lessons at home or go to trainings on their own time as “part of the job.”

Further, under the current labor shortage of care givers, larger organizations serving more affluent families have an advantage in hiring full-time, highly qualified staff. Yet another example of how current inequality perpetuates and deepens economic, racial and gender inequality. For many providers, pressure to keep costs low may mean that workers are given only part-time work to remain ineligible for employer benefits. Or the flip side of that coin, workers may only be able to work part time in order to remain eligible for public benefits for health care, food stamps, housing or income assistance—ironically even for child care benefits. These public benefits are essential for low wage workers across the economy—workers earning well below family-sustaining wages. Current policies are a disincentive to earn a little more money but not enough to cover the loss of basic essential family supports. Employers and policy makers, including the Federal Reserve Bank, are beginning to grapple with this problem of the “benefits cliff.”

With respect to race and ethnicity, roughly three of every ten child care workers identify with groups other than white, non-Hispanic/Latinx, compared to just two of ten workers countywide. Notably, child care workers are twice as likely (20%) as members of the broader EC workforce (10%) to identify as Black of African American. Stated alternatively, persons of color – especially Black persons – account for a disproportionately high share of EC’s child care workforce.

Figure 12.

Next, reflecting the gendered nature of care work, child care workers in EC are predominantly women.  (Figure 13.)Whereas the County’s overall labor force is split relatively evenly between men and women, nearly nine out of every ten child care workers identify as women. Child care is driven by women and persons of color, with women of color playing an especially outsized role in Erie County’s care economy.

Figure 13.

In addition to reporting their occupations and demographic characteristics, respondents to the ACS self-report the usual number of hours they work per week, the number of weeks they work per year, the total wages they earned during the past year, and whether they receive employer-provided health benefits. The first three of these values can be used to compute a worker’s effective hourly wage, or the amount they receive per hour given the number of hours they work.[7]

As expanded on below in the Cornell Provider Survey Results, one consistent and persistent theme that emerged in focus groups with child care providers is that their work does not end when children leave for the day. Indeed, providers generally agreed that they work between 1,000 and 1,200 hours per year for which they are not compensated. For that reason, many providers report that they effectively earn less than New York State minimum wage, let alone a living or thriving wage.

ACS data support these claims. Figure 14 presents the median effective hourly wage for child care workers in EC, NYC, and the remainder of upstate NYS alongside median effective wages for all other workers (i.e., non-child care workers) in those three geographies. The graph also features, for each geography, a median living wage derived by assigning each worker represented in the PUMS dataset their location- and household-specific living wage from the MIT Living Wage Calculator, based on the number of adults, working adults, and children in their households.[8]^,[9]

Figure 14.

In all three geographies across New York, the median effective wage for child care workers is less than half of the median effective wage for all other workers, and in all cases it falls below current minimum wage levels. Furthermore, in NYC and the rest of upstate, median child care wages are less than half of workers’ median living wage (LW) based on their household characteristics (number of adults in the house, number of adults working, and number of children). In EC, median effective child care wages are nearly $9 per hour below the median LW that would cover local costs of living for many workers. In all, approximately four out of five child care workers in EC earn below their LW, compared to just 45% of all other members of the County’s workforce.

Figure 15.

As shocking as that figure is—80% of child care workers in Erie County earning below a living wage—it is even worse in NYC and the rest of upstate. The reason for that outcome is that, according to the MIT LW Calculator, costs of living in EC are relatively low compared to much of NYS. Hence, the gap between median child care wages and the median LW appears somewhat smaller – though still appallingly large – than elsewhere in the state.

When data are geographically broken down to Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMA), inequality is strikingly evident within Erie County. As the following map reveals, the median effective wage for child care workers in the East Buffalo PUMA is just $8.22 per hour. After accounting for each child care worker's household characteristics (numbers of adults, adults working, and children) and consulting the MIT LW Calculator, the median living wage for child care workers in East Buffalo is $26.51. As such, the median effective wage is just 31% of the median living wage. That number (31%) is the eleventh worst ratio of median effective wage to median living wage of the 145 PUMAs in NYS. The observed median effective wage of $8.22 per hour in that location is likewise in the bottom 10% of the statewide distribution.

Figure 16.

Corroborating earlier claims from the literature and expectations for this study, child care work in EC is low-wage, precarious, gendered, and racialized work—a conclusion that bears repeating. As noted above, because of the industry’s extremely poor compensation levels, child care workers are much more likely than other members of the workforce to receive government benefits like Medicaid, Food Stamps, and public assistance income – and much less likely to receive workplace benefits like employer-provided health coverage.

Notably, as shown in Figure 17, workers in Erie County enjoy higher rates of employer-provided health coverage than those in either the region of NYC or the rest of upstate NY. Due in part to the role of unions in local economic history, more than three-fourths of the EC workforce has employer-provided health coverage. However, less than 59% of child care workers receive health coverage through their employers, and 30.8% rely on Medicaid for health care.

Figure 17.

Similarly, as noted above, low wages in child care leave care givers and educators eligible for other anti-poverty benefits: In Erie County, nearly 18% of child care workers receive SNAP (food stamp) benefits, while nearly 19% rely on public assistance income. To avoid the consequences of the benefits cliff, child care providers report the use of gift certificates and other forms of nonmonetary payments in lieu of increased compensation.

Figure 18.

Early child care and education is, to state the obvious, a critically important occupation. A profession that demands extraordinary dedication, compassion, skills and knowledge—one that literally shapes our future through the social and intellectual development of babies and children. Yet, like sister occupations in the care economy, it is grossly undervalued in the market-driven system of child care. Decades of experience and well-researched evidence have established beyond a reasonable doubt the public value of quality child care. To achieve universal and equitable quality child care will require reform that transforms the system into one that functions as a public good, not as an optional service for those who can afford it, performed by underpaid workers with little chance for family-sustaining wages or professional advancement.

Cornell Survey of Child Care Providers: Challenges and Costs of Care in Erie County

Secondary source economic data on the child care industry, summarized above, made it clear that child care work is underfunded in Erie County. Workers, on balance, earn low wages and most lack essential job-related benefits like employer-provided health coverage. That fact that the number of child care employees in the County has been falling is not coincidence. Upward pressure on wages in other traditionally low-paying industries (e.g., retail and food service) might be acting as a pull factor – pulling workers out of child care and into higher paying jobs. At the same time, financial strains on providers, made worse by the pandemic, are concurrently pushing workers out of the industry via temporary or permanent layoffs or business closures.[10]

In November 2021, the Cornell ILR research team, working with a professional survey organization, sent an on-line survey to all 499 Erie County licensed providers.  Incentivized with a $25 gift certificate, providers completed the survey with a 46.9% rate, yielding 234 valid responses. Both the spatial distribution of respondents and the breakdown of responses by program type were well-matched to population totals.  Moreover, the survey achieved better response rates than the New York State market survey in all program types.

The survey was designed to identify and quantify gaps in the current system: gaps between actual operating costs and NYS subsidy support; gaps between current wages and living wages; and equity gaps in access, affordability, and sustainability. Such numbers allow for an assessment of the existing, premier public sector program for making child care more accessible, which, in turn, can produce vital implications for conceiving of and implementing transformational changes to the prevailing system.

The survey was supplemented by four focus groups with EC child care providers, one for each care modality. In this analysis, survey results are also presented in terms of those four categories used by the NYS OCFS:

• Family Day Cares (FDCs)
• Group Family Day Cares (GFDCs)
• Day Care Centers (DCCs),
• School-Aged Child Care (SACC).

Moreover, because the subsidy is administered through the EC Department of Social Services, and providers therefore speak of “DSS subsidies,” that term is also used in these survey results.

Altogether, 70% of responding providers noted that they accept and care for children who receive child care subsidies. Countywide, DCC and SACC programs were slightly more likely than FDC and GFDC programs to indicate that they accept children who receive subsidies. (Figure 19.) However, children receiving subsidies make up a greater percentage of children served at FDC and GFDC facilities compared to DCC and SACC programs – the median share of DSS-subsidized children is 33% at FDC and GFDC facilities, but only 13% at DCC and SAC programs.

Figure 19.

Seven out of every ten survey respondents also indicated that they currently do not make enough money to offer the level and quality of services they wish to provide. However, the situation is much more severe for DSS subsidy recipients. Over 80% of subsidized providers do not generate enough revenue to provide desired levels of care, compared to just 50% of their counterparts who rely more heavily on other funding sources (especially parent private pay). The implication is that the facilities serving more financially disempowered children are themselves more financially disempowered.

Figure 20.

Echoing the previous finding, roughly two-thirds of respondents who accept DSS subsidies agree that existing subsidy rates do not cover their current costs of care – suggesting that the rates are well below an amount that would allow providers to offer their desired levels of care.

Figure 21.

One potential consequence of insufficient DSS subsidy rates is unrealized capacity. Whereas most providers (51.7%) who do not accept DSS subsidies wish to continue operating at their current scales over the next two years, more than three-fifths (60.7%) of subsidy recipients expressed a desire to expand or increase the services they currently offer.

Figure 22.

Unlocking the latent capacity described above might help to address at least some existing mismatch issues. Namely, 101 survey respondents (81.2% of which were DCC and SACC providers) reported having waitlists, with 1,803 total children represented on those lists (note: it is not possible to know how many children appear on multiple lists).

Roughly 69% of those 1,803 children are on waitlists at providers who accept DSS subsidies. Recall that such providers were much more likely than non-subsidy recipients to express a desire to expand. Nevertheless, most providers – including those with waitlists – are currently caring for fewer children than the number for which they are licensed. DCC and SACC providers who do not accept DSS subsidies have the highest median number of seemingly unused slots, at 13. However, focus groups revealed that at least some of this ostensible “excess capacity” is likely to be temporary, as providers are holding slots for families whose schedules and employment have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Figure 23.

Those child care providers who reported operating below capacity pointed to a lack of qualified workers as the main reason why. (Figure 24.) For FDC and GFDC providers, the plurality of non-subsidized respondents are not operating below capacity. Those that are, though, cite insufficient applications and enrollment—which is the same barrier facing FDC and GFDC providers who accept DSS subsidies, and who experienced lower enrollments during the pandemic.

Figure 24.

To this point, survey data have shown that EC child care providers, on balance, are not making enough money to offer the quality and level of services they wish to offer – and that this tendency is especially true for providers who accept children on DSS subsidies. Along those lines, an important question is: into which areas would providers prioritize investment if they had sufficient funding?

Despite the difference between subsidy-accepting and non-subsidy-accepting providers observed thus far, median rankings of both groups of respondents were identical when asked to prioritize eight categories of investments. Higher salaries and better benefits for current staff, additional staff, and capital improvements top the priority list.

Figure 25.

Consistent with the secondary BLS and U.S. Census ACS PUMS data summarized earlier, the providers who participated in the survey and focus groups collectively agree that resources are too scarce in their industry to offer salary and benefits packages that fairly and adequately compensate child care workers (including themselves). Poor compensation, in turn, makes it difficult for providers to attract and retain qualified staff. Simply, current prevailing wages for child care work in EC are a major barrier to expanding the size of the industry and enhancing the quality of care.

Mirroring the ACS and BLS data, survey respondents report that nearly seven of every ten workers at their establishments (67.6%) earn at or below $15/hour. Recall that ACS data suggested that nearly 80% of EC child care workers earn below a living wage. The ACS estimate is slightly higher than the information obtained from survey respondents, however that may be due to the fact that the child care workforce shrank by 11% between 2019 and 2020. At least some of that contraction is probably attributable to COVID-19. Because pandemic-related job losses have been concentrated at the low end of the pay scale, it is reasonable to expect that the recent losses in child care jobs in EC followed that pattern.

Accordingly, the slightly lower fraction of low-wage workers reported by survey respondents relative to ACS data is plausibly due, at least in part, to fewer sub-$15/hour earners in the workforce now compared to when the ACS data were collected. The plurality of employees at DCC and SACC facilities earn $12.51-$15/hour; while the majority of FDC and GFDC providers earn at or below the 2021 year-end EC minimum wage of $12.50/hour.

Figure 26.

Figure 27.

Assuming that FDC and GFDC providers tend to be self-employed, while workers at DCC and SACC programs tend to be employed by others, data provided by survey respondents are quite consistent with data reported by self-identified child care workers in the ACS PUMS. Namely, recall that ACS data showed that 84% of child care workers work for employers, with the remaining 16% self-employed. Using the preceding logic – as well as the employment levels reported in the preceding figure – 89.9% of staff represented in the survey work for DCC or SACC programs, with the remaining 10.1% working at FDC and GFDC facilities. The relative correspondence between sample data and data from authoritative external sources implies that information on personnel and non-personnel costs provided by survey respondents should paint a realistic picture of the cost of child care in Erie County.

Approximately half of respondents were unable to provide complete data on their personnel and non-personnel costs. About 20% of those respondents who did supply complete data came from facilities that do not receive DSS subsidies. Thus, the analyses that follow are based on a subset of the survey sample: providers who receive DSS subsidies and who supplied usable cost data. Even despite missing data, though, cost estimates obtained from the self-reported survey data are highly compatible with statewide cost estimates from the Center for American Progress (CAP).[11] The table below presents average values, by provider types, for key cost variables.[12]

Figure 28.

Not surprisingly, FDC and GFDC facilities, on average, have smaller staffs and serve fewer children than DCC and SACC programs, and their workers appear to earn lower average wages. Importantly, though, family providers report that non-personnel costs constitute a significantly higher share of their total costs (on average). This finding fits with anecdotal evidence obtained in two focus groups that were held with FDC and GFDC providers. The providers, who all operated out of their homes, stressed that they are essentially always “on duty” – cleaning, making repairs, shopping for supplies while running household errands – because they spend most of their time at, and stewarding, their home-workplaces.

Focus group participants uniformly agreed that they work 1,000 to 1,200 hours per year that go uncompensated, and that they are never able to fully “write off” their true expenses on their tax returns because their work-related expenses are so intermixed with their household expenses. When asked about their greatest costs, one provider responded: “My biggest cost is what I’m not getting by doing this job.”  Economists refer to this concept – what one could earn if they used their time and resources for some other purpose – as an opportunity cost. It was clear during the focus groups that FDC and GFDC providers are fully aware of their opportunity costs – suggesting that their tendency to report higher relative non-personnel costs than DCC and SACC providers might reflect an inherent accounting for these [non-monetary] costs in their survey responses.

One consistent theme to emerge in all four focus groups conducted by the researchers – but especially in the two that featured at-home providers – is that providers feel that they are unable to raise rates to desired levels because they will lose clients to lower-cost alternatives. As an extreme example, there is a near-universal fear among providers that federal funding for universal Pre-K will see most families with Pre-K-aged children opt out of the existing provider landscape in favor of public schools. Hence, providers feel pressure to “race to the bottom” – artificially keeping costs low by driving their costs (especially labor) down to unsustainable levels. These observations about the ways in which market pressures push providers to charge below-true-cost rates imply that the existing, market-price-based DSS subsidy rate schedule does not reflect true costs of child care.

The NYS DSS subsidy schedule for EC at the time of the survey is shown below. Each value represents the weekly subsidy payment that a provider would receive if a student in the given age group were to attend the provider’s facility on a full-time basis for an entire week.

Figure 29.

Providers receive these subsidy amounts based on attendance, not enrollment. For example, if a DCC cares for one infant whose tuition is subsidized by DSS, then the provider is paid the full rate of $280 per week for that infant only if the infant attends the facility full-time for the whole week. If the infant is ill or otherwise unable to attend the facility for, say, three days during a single week, then the provider will only receive the daily subsidy rate ($59/day) for the two days that the child was in the provider’s care. Thus, even though the provider’s costs remain the same – staff, utilities, supplies, etc. – they are subsidized by only $118 (2 days x $59/day) rather than the weekly $280 rate they would normally receive.

This payment system based on attendance rather than enrollment means that providers essentially never receive the full value of the subsidy for any given child over the course of a year – a point that was made and reinforced with strong emphasis by all subsidy-accepting providers during the four focus groups. Therefore, applying the full weekly subsidy rates to the number of subsidized children that each provider has will meaningfully overstate the amount of funding that a provider actually receives. The research team therefore adopts a conservative assumption that a provider receives, on average, 75% of the full subsidy value for each subsidized child in their care. Based on focus group conversations, even this assumption is likely to overstate a provider’s actual amount of subsidy received. However, absent more exact figures, the 75% assumption allows for a useful starting point.

Toward that end, the chart that follows shows the average dollar figure per child of child care for four values: 1 and 2 being calculations of NYS subsidy rates, 3 being survey-reported current actual costs per child, and 4 being actual current costs plus wage increases to better approach living wages.

• Subsidy 1 applies current weekly NYS subsidy rates to the number of subsidized children self-reported by providers, adjusting for the ages of children served by the providers. It then multiples that total by 75% and divides by the number of children receiving subsidies. This is essentially the status quo.
• Subsidy 2 assumes that providers receive full weekly rates for all subsidized children in their care. In other words, subsidy payment is made on enrollment rather than attendance and subsidized children are assumed to attend full-time on a year-round basis.
• Actual Costs sums self-reported personnel and non-personnel costs and divides by the number of children currently in a provider’s care. Because respondents were asked for the total number of children in their care – and not the number of full-time children – costs per child will appear artificially low for providers who care for relatively many part time children (i.e., the denominator in the ratio of total cost to number of children served will be higher).
• Actual Costs Plus Wage Increases begins with the self-reported costs from Actual Costs and adds the cost of increasing the wages of all staff members, while holding all other costs (benefits and non-personnel costs) constant. The following wage increases were applied:
  • Hourly wages for full-time (FT) staff were set to $25/hour, which is roughly what federal minimum wage would be if minimum wage continued to track with productivity as it had up until the 1960s. Hours for all FT staff were set to 40.[13]
  • Hourly wages for part-time (PT) staff were set to $20/hour, which is the midpoint between the roughly $15/hour “living wage” for a single adult without children in EC[14] and the $25/hour rate described above. Hours for all PT staff were set to 20.

Figure 30.

The above graph reaffirms that NYS subsidy rates fall short of covering the costs of child care in EC. To better understand the typical gap between subsidy rates and costs of care, the research team computed the difference between the provider’s estimated annual subsidy received per child per year (which the researchers set at 75% of the subsidy if all subsidized children received the full weekly rate), and the cost per child per year implicated in the provider’s self-reported data. (In other words, for each provider, the researchers computed the difference between Subsidy 1 and Actual Costs as described above.) These provider-by-provider gaps are then expressed in weekly terms to indicate how much current subsidy rates fall short of covering provider costs. These values are contained in the table below.

Figure 31. Gap Between 75% Average NYS Subsidy Rate and Actual Cost of Care

The data suggest that, on average, subsidies fall short of covering costs of care by $53 per child for DCC and SACC providers, and $107 per child for FDC and GFDC providers. However, recall that most providers who accept DSS-subsidized children (61%) indicated that they hope to expand – and more than 80% of such providers stated that their current financial constraints are preventing them from providing the quality of services and/or the quality working environment for their employees that they wish to offer. Accordingly, it is useful to think about gaps not just between existing subsidy rates and costs of care for current services, but also between subsidy rates and the costs of raising quality in the industry (both of care and for child care workers).

Actual Costs Plus Wage Increases is a measured first step for enhancing quality in the child care industry: raising workers’ wages (while holding all else constant). In general, fairer compensation is tied to worker happiness and productivity, and higher wages are associated with lower worker turnover. Providers recognize these relationships. Attracting and retaining quality staff was cited by providers as a major barrier to fulfilling their ambitions; and paying staff fairer wages was, on balance, the highest priority of survey respondents, as noted earlier. This modest, conservative, proposal simulates provider costs if full-time workers were paid $25/hour for 40 hours/week of work and part-time employees were paid $20/hour for 20 hours/week. According to the most recent BLS Employer Cost for Employee Compensation survey (for June 2021), the national average wage in the Educational and Health Services industry is $28.26/hour for FT employees and $22.76 for PT employees. In that respect, the wage rates used in the proposed increase are slightly below the national industry-wide average. These wages should therefore be considered a floor rather than a ceiling. Ideally, efforts to raise wages in child care will aim higher and include additional funding for employee benefits.

Using the same methodology, Figure 32 shows by how much current subsidy rates fall short of covering costs in this hypothetical, hoped-for scenario of Actual Costs Plus Wage Increases. Implementing these compensation increases, which would allow providers to begin addressing their #1 priority of raising staff wages, would require increases in weekly subsidy rates of around $140 per child for DCC and SACC providers and $240 per child for FDC and GFDC providers.

Figure 32. Gap Between 75% Average NYS Subsidy Rate and Actual Cost Plus Wage Increases

These numbers confirm what providers unanimously conveyed in four focus groups: the true cost of quality child care is steep – and rightly so, given how essential child care is to all other social and economic activity. After all, as the pandemic is continuing to show, if parents and guardians are not confident that their children can be cared for in a safe, enriching, and yet affordable environment, then they might leave the workforce altogether in favor of at-home caregiving. The more that workers (predominantly women) assess and potentially make this trade-off, the lower the labor force participation rate – and the more likely it becomes that employers in other sectors raise concerns of “labor shortages”. Investing in quality child care is a critical investment into a better functioning, more equitable and democratic economy.

The inadequacy of means-tested subsidies as the primary public support for child care can be illustrated by identifying the scale of households in Erie County most likely to qualify for and need access to DSS subsidies in the current system. Using ACS PUMS data, this universe of “likely subsidy candidates” was identified using the following criteria:

• At least one adult member of the household receives one of the following public benefits: Medicaid, Food Stamps, or Public Assistance Income
• All adult members of the household work
• There is at least one child in the household of care age (between 0 and 13 years)

Households that simultaneously exhibit all three criteria were coded as “likely subsidy candidates”. In all, 25,060 households in EC (6.8% of all households) fall in this universe. Data from Erie County’s Emergency Child Care Task Force in January 2022 revealed that, at that time, there were 2,270 children receiving DSS subsidies throughout the County. Assuming that each of those subsidy recipients comes from a unique household – which is a conservative estimate, since it is more than possible that some subsidy recipients are siblings – the implication is that DSS subsidies reach only one in eleven (9.1%) of “likely subsidy candidate” households in Erie County. As noted above, nationally, Center for American Progress researchers estimate that child care subsidies reach one in seven children.

Collectively, then, the analyses in this subsection offer strong evidence that the prevailing public “fix” for making child care accessible to low-income families is both wildly under-scaled – reaching a small fraction of families in need – and far too small in magnitude to cover the true costs of providing quality care. In short, the public solution of means-tested subsidies upholds and reinforces the ills of the current market care system – the race to the bottom in wages and benefits, the antisocial competition that allows affluent families to access care while leaving low-wealth families behind – while merely making conditions marginally less worse for a small fraction of families and providers.

Child Care as a Public Good: Policy Steps Forward

Must it always require a national emergency?

Public funding for child care in the U.S. dates back to the Great Depression of the 1930s. As part of the Works Progress Administration, the federal government created over 3,000 Emergency Nursery Schools. Opened within public schools, these centers were designed to create a healthy educational environment for impoverished children and to provide jobs for unemployed teachers, nurses, cooks, and janitors at a time when unemployment was 25 percent.[15] [16]

Support surged again as the country mobilized for World War II, when federal funds established free child care centers, especially in industrial areas like Buffalo, where women were desperately needed as workers in the massive factories cranking out airplanes, helicopters, engines, munition, even uniforms for the war. The end of the war was also, sadly, the end of federal funding, resulting in the closing of nearly 3000 child care centers and the loss of care for over 1.5 million children.[17]

The anti-poverty, civil rights, and feminist movements of the 1960s gave rise to the next increase in federal funding with the establishment of Head Start as a preschool educational program still serving over a million children annually. Since then, federal funding has fundamentally taken the forms of limited grants to states or tax relief to parents, clearly inadequate to fund an equitable and sustainable system of quality child care.

Simply put, the U.S. has yet to permanently value early child care and education as a universal public good. The social benefits of quality child care are well known and unchallenged, backed by decades of experience and research. It is a mutual interest of working families, employers, communities, and of the nation as a whole.

Must we ask: Are the crisis conditions of these times enough of an emergency to reach for that goal? Or dare we ask the better questions: Can this country prioritize collective benefit, the common good, over entrenched systems that benefit a few while imposing the chronic emergency of day in, day out poverty and discrimination on many? And, where does the well-being of children rank in our social values?

This modest local action research project cannot answer those questions. However, it has provided clear evidence of the need for fundamental change, right here in New York State, to address the gross racial and economic inequality and inaccessibility endemic to the current system. It also sets an example of how collaborative grassroots advocacy can advance public policy, step by step, with hopes and demands for continued momentum toward universal care.

The U.S. federal system permits, if not necessitates, innovation at the state and local levels, and Erie County and New York elected representatives have a stake in innovation here in WNY. Mobilizing shared interests to advance local innovations and reform efforts will empower the broad movement for transformative change in national child care policy. It has been done before, and today, early child development and education in the U.S. is in a state of enduring emergency. It is our turn to fix it.

Steps forward in New York in 2022

As the Steering Committee and the Emergency Child Care Task Force assessed the outcomes of the nearly year-long collaboration, they were unanimous that the action study project helped build alliances and advocacy for fundamental child care reform.

Other positive developments they observed as a result of collaborative advocacy for increased funding proposals in the NYS budget included:

• greater voice to the problems of underfunded child care professionals
• better understanding of non-labor costs including insurance, food, administrative costs, etc.
• “softer ground” for switching to a cost of care model
• more honest discussions and growing consensus about how the system is broken
• more realistic conversations about fundamental change in the system of care.

Budgetary gains included:

• subsidy increase from the 69^th to the 80^th percentile of the market rate
• expanded eligibility for subsidies up from 200% to 300% of the federal poverty level
• increased capital funding for providers
• stabilization grant funding aimed especially at increased wages
• increase in Universal Pre-K funding
• increase in Facilitated Enrollment Program funding
• cap on family co-pays to 10% of income above the federal poverty level
• funds for child care centers on SUNY campuses
• early notification of county allocations of funds.

The crucial increase in subsidy rates from the 60th percentile to the 80th percentile of the OCFS market rates went into effect June 1, 2022, resulting in the following changes.

Figure 33. NYS Child Care Market Subsidy Rates for Erie County: 2021 – 2022 (Effective June 1, 2022)
Weekly rates per subsidized child (attending full-time)

Average subsidy increases varied by care modality:

• The average increase in weekly subsidy per child in center-based care (DCC and SACC) is $55.25, an increase of between 21 and 23% (depending on age of child) over the 2021 rate, for an average increase of 22.0%.
• The average increase in weekly subsidy per child in family-based care (FDC and GFDC) is $91.00, an increase between 37 and 58% (depending on age of child) over the 2021 rate, for an average increase of 49.9%.

2022 subsidy increases begin to close the gaps between subsidy and actual current costs of care:

• For center-based care, increases exceeded the $53 gap required to cover current actual costs in all three younger age groups, being only slightly lower for children in school-age care.
• For family-based care, only the increase in infant care exceeded the $107 gap required to cover current actual costs.

Further analysis reveals that centers received on average 61% of the dollar amount of the weekly increase for family care facilities. Yet center care received 104% of the $53/week needed to cover their actual costs, while family care received on average only 85% of the $107/week need to cover their actual costs.

Nevertheless, it is striking that family care subsidies increased an average of 49.9% while center-based care subsidies increased an average of 22.0%. This differential seems a significant step forward in reducing one aspect of the gross inequity found in the child care sector.

Not having the OCFS 2021 market rate survey report makes it impossible to determine what accounts for the various amounts of 2022 subsidy increases. Those increases, favoring as they do family care modalities, suggest agreement with the Phase One survey and research findings of this True Cost of Care project that the gaps between subsidy rates and actual costs of care have been significantly larger for family care providers than for center-based care.

Equity steps forward—a long way yet to go for decent and sustainable wages for all.
Figure 34 compares the 2022 subsidy increases with the gaps between 2021 subsidy rates and actual current costs as well as actual costs plus living wages.

Figure 34. NYS Child Care Market Subsidy Rate Increases for 2022 with 2021 Gaps
Weekly rates per subsidized child (attending full-time)

For centers, this year’s $55 weekly increase is 39% of the $141 needed to support living wages, remaining gap being $86.

For family-based care, the $91 weekly increase is 38% of the $240 needed to support living wages, remaining gap being $149.

This change suggests a somewhat more level playing field for the next steps moving forward toward a system that supports a quality professional workforce earning family-sustaining wages.

Expanded eligibility for public support—subsidies help more families.
In addition to the increase in subsidy amount per child, eligibility for the subsidy will reach more families in 2022, as the annual household income for eligibility for the subsidy increased from 200% of the federal poverty level to 300%. That increase is substantial, for example: from $36,620 to $54,930 for a single parent with one child; from $55,500 to $83,250 for a household of four.

As is the case with means-tested public benefits more generally, these income limits are inherently arbitrary and create their own difficulties. That is particularly the case with subsidy support for child care because providers are prohibited by law from charging less for private pay than the rate of the public subsidy they accept. Therefore as subsidies go up to begin to cover actual costs of care, affordable accessibility may go down for some families with incomes just over the limits for subsidy support. This reality adds to the attraction of policies that aim for building a child care system that functions as a universal public good.

An effort for transformative change in the FY 2023 budgetary session was led by Senator Jabari Brisport and Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, lead sponsors of a bill, the Universal Child Care Act, which proposed a transformative $5 billion investment, essentially promising free child care for all families. That bill was not passed and the total child care funding number was reduced to $3 billion in the process of budget negotiations with Governor Kathy Hochul, and further cut down to the final $1.3 billion excluding reprogrammed funds from prior years. The Governor’s public commitment of $7 billion over four years is not binding and is dependent on future budgets.

Challenges remain

Although Erie County’s request to the State for $20 million for a pilot project specifically to raise child care wages was not successful, the County allocations for this year are expected to cover the increased subsidies for all qualified families. Low wages and the sufficiency of the child care workforce remain the top worries of providers and advocates alike, and while the changes this year in NYS are helpful, they may do little to address those concerns long term.

As this report and dozens before have documented, accessibility to care is grossly unequal and manifestly insufficient in New York as in the country. Right now in New York, American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding and NYS Stabilization grants are available for investments in the child care infrastructure and the workforce. Some of these funds target areas of “child care deserts.” Nevertheless, officials expect limited and inadequate slots for subsidy families. Neither the scale of investment nor the process for securing the funds give hope for significantly solving problems that are systemic.

Indeed, regulatory and administrative challenges remain a barrier to effective policy implementation and a hidden cost to providers. Local officials and the network of social service agencies charged with those duties express frustration in navigating the complexities of layered multifaceted local, state, and national policies. It is that much more difficult for providers, with the burden being greatest on those small child care enterprises already struggling with the cruel irony that many of those providers are themselves the working poor. And, as is the case for other low-wage workers, increased wages may have the unintended consequence of lowered family income as they lose eligibility for crucial public benefits such as healthcare or food stamps. Erie County’s current project on this “benefits cliff” seeks to address this challenge to upward mobility.

It must be said, child care offered and consumed as a service in a market system is likely to remain unequal and unaffordable to many in this country marred as we are by historically high racial and economic inequality. Even some early education programs labeled “universal” are not available, let alone equal, for everyone. For example, increased State funding in this budget year for “Universal Pre-K” has meant for one relatively middle class Erie County community that they have 100 Pre-K slots this fall for 300 applicants—the winners were drawn by lottery. What happens to the families of the other 200 children left to buy what they can in the market? How “universal” is that?

From emergency to equitable sustainable quality child care as a public good

As complex as child care issues are and as difficult as solutions to these broad problems have proven to be, there are encouraging signs. Recognition of child care as a critical industry is becoming more widespread, especially as employers in all sectors feel the pinch of labor shortage in a tight labor market. Long an ally, education professionals urge the incorporation of child care workers into that profession, and into the system of public education. Parents are being activated as they reach their limits of acceptance of the trade-offs they have to make to assure quality care and development of their children and still lead productive lives.

However, the road between recognizing a problem and finding solutions is often long. That has been especially true for child care. The U.S. child care system sits on a historical foundation of unpaid labor—the labor of enslaved people, indentured servants, nannies, undocumented workers, and women restricted to domestic work by law or tradition. To this day, of course, child care workers, like other domestic and care-giving service workers, are very disproportionately people of color and overwhelmingly women. It’s not by chance that those are the lowest paid occupations in the country. It’s also not acceptable that those occupations, many of which require professional qualifications, are the lowest paid occupations in the country.

With virtually no defenders of the child care status quo and growing consensus that the “broken system” needs to be rethought and transformed, this is the ideal time for strong democratic decision-making. This collaborative action research project provides an example of the effectiveness of generating and utilizing valid information to build consensus, develop strategies, and advance public policy. This Phase 2 report of the True Cost of Care project concludes with a challenge to public officials and other community leaders to be a part of an energized democratic process to create a child care system that works for all. Now is the time for overdrive in the policy lane, and the wheels are already in motion.

The broad collaborative network developed through this project in Erie County has the potential to serve as a laboratory for innovative solutions at the local level and to provide leadership to the movement for state and federal funding necessary to provide universal child care as a public good.

Innovation. Collaboration. Action.
Network partners identified many opportunities as steps forward for Erie County:

• • Enhance collaboration and support for professional child care workforce training.
  • Develop multiple sources for direct funding for increased wages.
  • Create pooled insurance fund and other group benefit funds.
  • Support the co-op model of enterprise development.
  • Expand mental health services for providers and children in their care.
  • Increase funding of supportive agencies to the child care field.
  • Improve public data, information and advanced technology within the child care system.
  • Update public administration processes, procedures, and information technology for providers and parents.
  • Reform fee requirements for individual child care workers to level the playing field with multi-site providers.
  • Connect the child care initiative with Erie County’s Benefits Cliff Initiative.
  • Explore specific partnerships and expand collaboration with employers and unions for building more equitable sustainable child care.
  • Work closely with NYS Child Care Availability Task Force, Empire State Campaign for Child Care and other statewide and national advocacy efforts.
  • Magnify support for federal policy reform with transformative funding increases.
  • Continue the study of the County’s child care workforce and industry to better understand strengths and weaknesses and to assess the effectiveness of policy changes and other innovations, with particular focus on whether or not increased funding results in wage increases sufficient to attract and retain the needed child care education workforce.
  • Grow this collaborative network of diversely representative stakeholders in the child care system, pursuing expanded mutual interest action among child care professionals, employers, unions, public officials, community leaders, educators, parents—all of whom have ample reason to care about the future of early care and education of our children.

Broad-based community economic development requires a commitment to equity and democratic influence over the local economy. This project has demonstrated its potential for progress toward a better child care system. The remarkable determination and dedication of diverse partners makes the work ahead possible.

Action Research Partners

Steering Committee

Marie Cannon, Commissioner Erie County Department of Social Services
Maria Whyte, Deputy Erie County Executive
Catherine Creighton, Director, Cornell ILR Buffalo Co-Lab
Lou Jean Fleron, Political Economy Consultant, Cornell ILR Buffalo-Co-Lab
Diane Abrams, Owner, TootToot Day Care; Founder, Workforce Solutions Consortium; WNY Child Care Action Team
Colleen Brecker, Owner, Early Bird Childcare Centers
Bonnie Caldwell, Early Learning and Care Representative, Civil Service Employees Association
Jacqueline Hall, Executive Director of Family Independence, Erie County DSS
Karen King, Erie County Commissioner of Public Advocacy
Kim LoDico, WNY Leadership Initiative Regional Coordinator, NY Early Childhood Professional Development Institute
Tiffany Malone, Founder, ABC Learn and Play 2
Vonetta Rhodes-Osi, Early Childhood Trainer and Administrator, Color Outside of the Lines (COOL) Consultants; WNY Child Care Action Team
Jill Robbins, CEO, YWCA Western New York
Sheri Scavone, CEO, WNY Women’s Foundation
Kim Suminski, CEO, Child Care Resource Network

Live Well Erie Emergency Child Care Task Force

Marie Cannon, Co-Chair, Commissioner, Erie County Department of Social Services (DSS)
Maria Whyte, Co-Chair, Deputy Erie County Executive
Diane Abrams, Owner, TootToot Day Care; Founder, Workforce Solutions Consortium; WNY Child Care Action Team
Esther Annan, Program Officer, John R. Oishei Foundation
Christen Balisteri, Trainer, Child Care Resource Network
Jacqualine Berger, Community Development Director, Town of Amherst; Amherst Councilmember
Rachel Bonsignore, Director, Liftoff WNY
Kate Braun, Executive Director, The Champion Project
Colleen Brecker, Owner, Early Bird Childcare Centers
Sarah Buckley, Political/Legislative Director, CWA Local 1168
Bonnie Caldwell, Early Learning and Care Representative, Civil Service Employees Association
Ruth Cleary, Director, Ripen With Us Child Care Center; WNY Child Care Action Team
Anjana Cole-Hall, Program Director, Peace of Mind Quality Childcare Center
Christine Dusher, Program Director, Jewish Community Center of Greater Buffalo
Kelly Fanara, Head Start, Citizen Action Organization of Western New York
Lynn Fusco, District Superintendent and CEO, Erie 1 BOCES
Kim Gibson, Organizer, SEIU 1199
Ellen Grant, Deputy Mayor, City of Buffalo
Jacqueline Hall, Executive Director of Family Independence, Erie County DSS
Mary Jo Hunt, Executive Director, James H. Cummings Foundation
Khadijah Hussein, Youth Trainer, Community Health Worker Network of Buffalo
Donald Ingalls, Vice President, State and Federal Relations, HealthNow
Kate Joyce, Executive Director, Family Help Center
Will Keresztes, Chief of Intergovernmental Affairs, Planning, and Community Engagement, Buffalo Public Schools
Karen King, Erie County Commissioner of Public Advocacy
Talisa King, Erie County Youth Planning Coordinator; Chief Program Officer YWCA WNY
Lorrie Ann Knight, Chief Operations Officer, Boys & Girls Club of Buffalo
Kim LoDico, WNY Leadership Initiative Regional Coordinator, NY Early Childhood Professional Development Institute
Kim Luce, Vice President, School-Based Services, BestSelf Behavioral Health
Danyelle Luchey, Career Advisor, Buffalo Employment and Training Center
Brenna Lupo, Vice President, Education/Child Care Services, YMCA Buffalo Niagara
Sofia Mado, CEO, Little Angels Day Care Center and Main Street Children’s Academy; WNY Child Care Action Team
Tiffany Malone, Founder, ABC Learn and Play 2
Angela Marinucci, Commissioner, Erie County Senior Services
Lisa Matthies-Wiza, Director, Erie County Office of GIS
Sandie McCoulf, Director, Quality Control and Compliance, YWCA WNY
Shari McDonough, Chief Professional Officer, Boys & Girls Club of Buffalo
Blythe Merrill, Executive Vice President, John R. Oishei Foundation
David O’Rouke, District Superintendent and CEO, Erie 2 BOCES
Brian Pilarski, Executive Director, Seneca Babcock Community Association
Adriana Ragland, Parent Advocate, Founder, Neurodiversity Network of WNY
Barbara Reden, Director, Early Childhood Services, Jewish Community Center of Greater Buffalo
Vonetta Rhodes-Osi, Early Childhood Trainer and Administrator, Color Outside of the Lines (COOL) Consultants; WNY Child Care Action Team
Jill Robbins, CEO, YWCA Western New York
Sheri Scavone, CEO, WNY Women’s Foundation
Susan Singer, Buffalo Regional Manager, NYS Office of Child and Family Services
Penny Snell, Vice President of Youth Development, YMCA Buffalo Niagara
Kim Stewart, Director of Early Childhood, CCNY, Inc.
Kim Suminski, CEO, Child Care Resource Network
Karen Taylor, Director, Strategic HR Business Partner, Health Now
Tracey Turner, Director of Regional Operations, Division of Child Care Services, NYS OCFS
Jessica Bauer Walker, Executive Director, Community Health Worker Network of Buffalo
Mary Wagner, Executive Assistant, HealthNow
Felicia Williamson, Owner, My Precious Angels Day Care Center; WNY Child Care Action Team
Franketta Willoughby, Self-employed, Child Care Services
Brenton Wood, Human Resource Department, Catholic Health
Rick Zakalik, Executive Director, Jewish Community Center of Greater Buffalo