Child Care Impact, Access, and Affordability in Wisconsin

High-quality early childhood care and education benefits children, families, and our economy in the short and long term.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation calls quality, affordable child care “A two-generation solution to support our economy,” one that:

“Strengthens the current workforce by increasing postsecondary education completion, raising workforce participation and productivity, and helping businesses attract and retain talent; and
Is a wise investment in the future workforce by laying a solid foundation for future skill development, including the hard and soft skills necessary for workforce success, and allowing children to enter school ready to learn and thrive.”¹

Rigorous longitudinal research has found that participants in high-quality child care are more likely than non-participants to:

Complete high school without suspension;
Never be addicted or arrested;
Be employed full-time or be self-employed; and
Have stable marriages and raise their children in two-parent households.²

High-quality early childhood care and education has a high return on investment.

According to researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank, cost-benefit ratios from quality early childhood programs for children from low-income families “range from $4 to as high as $16 for every dollar invested.”³

Child care has a significant impact on Wisconsin’s economy.

In Wisconsin, an estimated 37,070 jobs are sustained by the child care sector. And the child care sector has an estimated economic impact of $1.75 billion in the state, including revenue generated by child care providers and spillover or related productivity in other sectors.⁴

Child care affects employers today – a national study found that 86 percent of primary caregivers said problems with infant/toddler child care hurt their efforts or time commitment at work, at a national cost of $57 billion in lost earnings, productivity, and revenue.⁵

Many Wisconsin children, families, and employers could benefit from high-quality early childhood care and education.

Across Wisconsin, there are nearly 290,000 children under age six with all available parents in the workforce.⁶ About 58 percent of children birth to age 5 in the state are in non-parental care for at least 10 hours every week.⁷

There’s not enough child care in many communities.

Statewide, over half of people live in a childcare desert, where there are either no child care providers or so few options that there are more than three times as many children as licensed care slots.⁸

Child care is unaffordable for many families.

The average cost of care for one infant in the state is $12,567 a year. That’s more than the average Wisconsin family pays for rent in a year, and more than a year of in-state tuition at 4-year colleges.⁹

In fact, the average Wisconsin family has to pay almost 19 percent of their annual income to afford care for one infant. Without support, a minimum wage worker would need to pay over 80 percent of their annual income for care for one infant. In other words, a minimum wage worker would need to work full-time from January to October just to pay the cost of care for one infant.¹⁰

Communities across Wisconsin are working together on solutions.

The Wisconsin Partnership is a collaboration among the four StriveTogether-affiliated local collective impact organizations in Wisconsin: Achieve Brown County, Building Our Future in Kenosha County, Higher Expectations for Racine County, and Milwaukee Succeeds.

Across these four communities—which collectively serve 1 of every 4 Wisconsinites from birth to age 8— business, government, philanthropic, and non-profit partners are working together to expand access to high-quality early childhood systems and supports and ensure that all children are ready for school.

To learn more, contact Daria Hall, Policy Director for the Wisconsin Partnership, at dhall@wisconsinpartnership.org.

¹U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, The Business Case for High-Quality Childcare, https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/center-education-and-workforce/graphic-business-case-high-quality-childcare

² The Heckman Equation, Perry Preschool: Intergenerational Effects, https://heckmanequation.org/www/assets/2019/05/F_Heckman_PerryMidlife_OnePager_050819.pdf

³ Rob Gruenwald, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Investments in Young Children Yield High Public Returns, Fall 2016, https://www.philadelphiafed.org/community-development/publications/cascade/93/04_investments-in-young-children

⁴ Committee for Economic Development, Child Care in State Economies, Wisconsin Fact Sheet 2019 Update, https://www.ced.org/assets/reports/childcareimpact/fact_sheets/revised/Wisconsin%20Fact%20Sheet%201312019.pdf

⁵ Council for a Strong America, Infant-Toddler Care Challenges Undermine Wisconsin’s Strength, https://www.strongnation.org/articles/860-infant-toddler-child-care-challenges-undermine-wisconsin-s-strength

⁶ First Five Years Fund, Early Childhood Education in Wisconsin, https://www.ffyf.org/wisconsin-profile/

⁷ Committee for Economic Development, Child Care in State Economies, Wisconsin Fact Sheet 2019 Update, https://www.ced.org/assets/reports/childcareimpact/fact_sheets/revised/Wisconsin%20Fact%20Sheet%201312019.pdf

⁸ Center for American Progress, https://childcaredeserts.org/?state=WI

⁹ Economic Policy Institute, Child Care Costs in the United States, https://www.epi.org/child-care-costs-in-the-united-states/

¹⁰ Economic Policy Institute, Child Care Costs in the United States, https://www.epi.org/child-care-costs-in-the-united-states/

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