Q& A
OHIO STATE
REPRESENTATIVE
ANDREA WHITE
By: Alexander Watts, Marketing Specialist -
Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce
There is no doubt that access to affordable, quality child care is intimately linked to workforce participation; particularly among women. Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce Vice President Stephanie Keinath recently sat down with State Representative Andrea White to talk about the impact of childcare access as it relates to the current workforce landscape and the long term competitiveness of the state. Representative White has been at the forefront of this issue and provides valuable insights for Ohio’s business leaders and families.
1. How does the availability and affordability of childcare in Ohio impact the ability of businesses to attract and retain skilled employees?
It’s no secret that Ohio employers are facing a staggering workforce crisis that is only exacerbated by a second dueling crisis – the unprecedented challenges families are facing when they try to access safe, affordable and conveniently located quality child care in their communities.
We are seeing examples all across Ohio where families who cannot afford child care are leaving the workforce altogether. This isn’t really a surprise when you consider that the average cost of center-based child care for Ohio families ranges from about $8,600 to $11,400 – depending on the age of your child and where you live. It’s even higher in our region for parents seeking care for infants and toddlers. This means, for example, a mom with two young children – an infant and a toddler – would spend $10 or more an hour on child care alone, making a return to work unaffordable for many parents.
Interestingly, 800,000 of Ohio’s working parents recently reported cutting back on work hours due to child care barriers, and 13% of Ohio kids under the age of six live in families where someone quit, changed or refused a job because of problems with child care. These numbers indicate that if we can help solve the child care crisis through more investments from both the public and private sectors, we will likely quickly see a strong return on those dollars through increased parents returning to the workforce.
2. Are there any specific challenges faced by business, particularly small business, related to childcare support? Are there any industries disproportionally impacted?
We’ve seen the stats. Almost half of our small business owners say a lack of available or affordable child care affects their ability to recruit and retain employees. Much of this is due to affordability, as we’ve already discussed. Affordability particularly impacts our industries paying lower wages, since child care takes up such a large chunk of their hourly rate.
But for many, it’s a matter of geography. Close to 40% of our citizens are living in an area that has little to no access to child care to meet needs – considered in essence a child care “desert.” Many of our neighbors travel considerable distances to drop their children off at a child care center or family home provider, only to head off in a different direction another 20 minutes to get to work. These “deserts” are most prevalent in our rural and underserved urban areas – the same areas which also have lower literacy rates as well as higher poverty rates.
3. How do you view the connection between investments in childcare and the long-term economic competitiveness of Ohio?
As a direct result of child care issues, it’s estimated the United States loses $122 billion in earnings, productivity and revenue annually. Ohio’s economy along suffers an annual estimated loss of $3.9 billion.
Let’s not forget, lack of access to quality child care and early learning impacts not only our workforce of today, but our developing young workforce of tomorrow who need access to quality early learning. With almost 65 percent of our young children not demonstrating kindergarten readiness as they started school in fall 2022, the time for us to act is now for future generations.
We’ve also got a declining adult population problem in Ohio. As we attract more businesses to drive the state’s economic engine, we’ve got to attract more workers to our state. Those workers, like the ones who already live here, will need the human infrastructure of child care, housing and transportation to help bring them to our businesses and communities. Child care is a key part of that.
4. You’ve been a champion for early-childhood education and childcare in the Legislature, can you tell us what you are exploring to address the childcare workforce shortage in Ohio and the impact of that on businesses and families?
In 2022, I co-chaired a Joint Legislative Study Committee on our state’s publicly funded child care and Step Up to Quality system with Senator Jerry Cirino. We heard from hundreds of stakeholders including business owners and leaders, child care providers, advocates, government entities and families citing access to quality, affordable child care and subsequently the lack of workforce availability across industries. That experience, along with research on what other states are successfully doing, has helped inform the legislation I have introduced or am supporting to address both access to quality, affordable care and workforce issues.
And of course, one of the major industries with employee shortages is the child care space itself – the “workforce behind the workforce.” When you consider that the average child care worker in Montgomery County makes $13.56 an hour and preschool teacher make $15.22 an hour, you can understand why it’s hard for centers to compete against fast food restaurants and big box stores who pay much higher hourly wages which likely come with a lot less stress.
Many preschool teachers have four-year college degrees with college debt. Other child care workers are earning a Child Development Associate credential, and building a pathway to an associate’s degree. We need to get those wages up to incentivize more workers to go into and stay in early childhood. One way could be interest-free loans that become grants after someone stays in the field five years. It’s something we’re doing in Ohio in other in-demand job spaces. We need to have that for early childhood educators.
Another way is for Ohio to incentivize public-private partnerships that encourage businesses to collaborate with child care providers to help them get their operating costs down by providing on-site or near-site space at low rent so they can, in turn, pay their workers more. Or, perhaps a group of employers, nonprofits and child care providers can come together to retrofit, build or equip more child care capacity closer to home in our rural areas. Fostering these public-private partnerships and innovative, locally-tailored solutions by providing incentive grants up to $750,000, along with training and resources for our businesses and providers, is what my House Bill 484 legislation I’m sponsoring with Rep. Bill Roemer is all about.
Incentivizing businesses to start viewing child care support for their workforce as a necessary employee benefit and workforce recruitment tool is the goal behind a few other bills I’ve introduced. HB 576 that I’m working on with Rep. Cindy Abrams provides an Ohio tax credit for employers of up to $500,000 per year for them to support their employees through collaboration with child care providers to expand on-site or near-site child care facilities or reduce overhead costs, or perhaps offering child care stipends for employees or sponsor discounts at nearby centers to help make child care more affordable and convenient for their workforce.
To help spur investment in child care family home and center-based providers, again to help them reduce costs and raise wages to attract workers, I’ve also introduced HB 578. This legislation provides a 50 percent tax credit of up to $100,000 for contributions by individuals and LLCs to a qualified child care provider. While the donor can’t claim a credit for contributions to pay for their own family’s child care, an employer can receive a discounted rate for their employees’ child care in exchange for their donation.
You might ask, what about direct help for all working parents including early childhood educators so they can stave off the impact of inflation and rising costs? I’ve also introduced HB 577, which offers Ohio tax credits for families paying for child care – with $3,000 per child or a maximum of $6,000 per family that is refundable in part based on a sliding scale. Rep. Sharon Ray and I have also introduced HB 580 to help employees who want to provide a foster home but stay in or return to the workforce. The bill would provide publicly funded child care for all foster children in Ohio.
5. Are there any other thoughts you would like to share?
Across the country, employers are investing in new strategies to attract and retain workers, including expanding their support for employee child care. It’s time we come alongside Ohio businesses in this arena as they seek to strengthen our local communities and provide the jobs that fuel our state’s economic engine.
We’re talking about a delicate ecosystem that supports our children, our families, our businesses and in essence our communities. It’s about balancing the needs of our developing children and their parents who seek to enter or remain in the workforce with the needs of our businesses and organizations. Strong families create strong communities, but without strong businesses our families can’t thrive.
For Ohio families, caregivers, and employers access to affordable, reliable, quality childcare enables the pursuit of employment, empowers workforce development, and strengthens our communities and Ohio’s business environment. We would like to thank Representative White for answering our questions and look forward to continued conversations and efforts surrounding the issue of childcare for Ohio’s workforce and families.
