Expensive and inadequate child care is hampering thousands of parents' ability to work in Cuyahoga County, according to a new report issued by Early Matters NEO, a collaborative including Cleveland and Cuyahoga County nonprofits and government agencies.
With average child care costs exceeding $10,000 or more in Cleveland, the report, "Driving Growth: The Economic Value of Child Care," also suggests families with young children are missing out on more than $400 million in potential earnings annually due to fewer hours worked, lower wages and other sacrifices parents make to find jobs that accommodate time needed to care for children. That in turn translates into a more than $100 million loss, each, in lost local tax revenue and profits for businesses. Meanwhile, the number of parents unable to work drives up Cleveland's unemployment rate by as much as 2%. The current overall rate is 4%.
The report is based on a survey of about 400 working parents with young children in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County. Early Matters NEO is comprised of the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Workforce Development Board, local nonprofits PRE4CLE and Starting Point, Cuyahoga Community College and several other Cuyahoga County offices.
About 55% of parents surveyed said child care is not affordable, while 78% reported access is a challenge, typically due to work hours not matching hours of daycare providers or trouble getting kids to and from those locations.
Liz Lopez, a nursing department coordinator at Cleveland Clinic Children's Hospital for Rehab, has had trouble affording child care for her children. She said the daycare she sends her three-year-old initially cost her about $185 per week.
"For the average person, like, how are they supposed to send their kid to daycare? And then they want people to work, but it's like they're working just (to pay for) daycare or child care," she said.
Lopez said she recently was awarded a scholarship through a $4.4-million American Rescue Plan Act-funded program started by the city of Cleveland last year to defray the cost of child care. That dropped the cost to about $32 per week. It was a big help, Lopez said, but it's only temporary. Starting Point, the nonprofit coordinating the program, says it's disbursed the $1.8 million meant for scholarships; the rest of the money goes toward sign-on and retention bonuses for child care workers.
Meanwhile, other forms of aid for parents are limited, the report found: Ohio's state child care subsidy is capped at parents earning 145% of the poverty line, "the lowest in the nation," the report found. Meanwhile, while some school districts offer free or low-cost preschool, slots are limited and sometimes only available to students with disabilities. Cuyahoga County does have a Universal Pre-Kindergarten Program that provided scholarships to 1,000 families in the last 2022-2023 school year, that cut costs between one-third and one-half for families under 400% of the poverty line.
The report found that quality of child care programs is also a problem, partly "because child care teacher pay is low (and much lower than pay for teaching in K-12 schools)," with many preschools and daycares being understaffed and unable to open up enough slots.
Lack of accessible child care has other negative repercussions for parents too, with 30% of parents changing from full- to part-time work, 44% turning down a new job offer and 63% missing a full day of work due to caring for their children.
Workplaces should "become part of the solution," the report reads, advocating for boosted support for the child care system and parents, while working with parents in their own organization to ensure they are supported.
