Child care issues cost workers, employers
MOSES LAKE — One in three Washington workers with young children has had to turn down a job or a promotion because it is so difficult to find quality, affordable childcare in this state.
And nearly one in 10 workers was either fired or had to quit work for the same reason.
Those are the conclusions of a new study jointly conducted by the Association of Washington Businesses and the state’s Department of Commerce into the ongoing childcare crisis in the state.
“It’s a big hit, a big loss of human potential,” said Paul Knox, a policy advisor with the state’s Child Care Collaborative Task Force.
Knox, along with former Seattle-area Democratic State Rep. Ruth Kagi, former Seattle Mayor Tim Burgess and Rep. Tom Dent, spoke at a luncheon Wednesday at the Moses Lake Elks Lodge and organized by the Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce and the Association of Washington Businesses.
And Knox expressed a sentiment felt by all the participants in Wednesday’s discussion.
“Child care is not baby-sitting, it’s early learning,” he said. “Quality early learning matter and the availability matter. It’s about the future of the workforce, not just the present.”
Quality child care has become an issue for businesses in the state not just because of the costs incurred and opportunities lost by today’s workers and business owners — which amount to $6.5 billion, according to the report — but also because children are also future workers.
And getting young kids ready for kindergarten is one of the most important things communities and government can do, Kagi said, and has always been the focus of her legislative efforts on the subject.
“The first three years are where children form foundations of social and emotional skills that are important to school and employers,” Kagi said. “It makes an enormous difference and gets them ready to go to school.”
Burgess said that studies have shown the number one indicator that someone will graduate from high school is reading at grade level in the third grade. When kids fail to graduate from high school, they are more likely to have difficulties finding and keeping work, and more likely to have problems with law enforcement and the courts.
“That should be a challenge to all of us to do something about this,” he said. “Kids are our future, and it’s better way for it now than pay for it later in social costs.”
During his time on the Seattle City Council, Burgess said the city enacted one of the country’s most sweeping childcare and early learning programs, guaranteeing free preschool for all children from families with incomes up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level ($77,250 per year for a family of four) and a visiting nurse program for expectant mothers and very young children that some have called “the best anti-poverty program in America.”
“It’s not good for kids, not good for businesses, not good for cities and the state unless we attention to these issues,” Burgess said. “It’s a good investment.”
However, the cost of the kind of child care that gets kids ready for kindergarten is expensive. According to Burgess, quality infant and toddler care in Grant county costs $8,058 — 15 percent of the county’s 2017 median income of $52,382 — more than it should for most families.
While the report (available online at shorturl.at/ansKY) makes no conclusion or recommendations, future reports from the child care task force are expected to recommend ways to improve both access and quality to childcare in Washington.
“We’re reaching too few children,” Kagi said. “Infant care is so prohibitively expensive that parents can’t afford it.”
“I’m a big fan of early learning,” Dent said. “If you can learn, we can’t stop you.”
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.