For the Month of the Young Child, we wanted to focus on people who make sacrifices to meet the needs of young children, their parents and teachers, and to share how people across Kalamazoo County are collaborating to address the cost of child care to improve the economic stability of teachers and families and create the conditions necessary for our economy to thrive.
Multiple aligned reports (see bottom) have shown the impact of the instability in child care on teachers, families, and the broader economy, but the impact of this instability and underfunding has resulted in dramatic data.
Families in Michigan-
- 14% of parents left a job in the prior six months due to childcare.
- 52% of parents needed to make a significant adjustment to school or work training due to childcare issues in the past 12 months.
- The average annual cost of care for an infant in Michigan is nearly $11,000. That’s 17% of the median household income in the state — and almost one-third of the median income for a childcare worker.
Teachers in Michigan-
- The average early childhood wage in Region 8 is $14.04/hour – and 1 in 4 qualify for public programs like SNAP and Medicaid.
- A lead teacher in a licensed child care center requires 97% of the same skills and qualifications as a Kindergarten teacher – yet they earn almost $14 less per hour
- Over 91% of Michigan’s early care and education workforce are women, many of whom are women of color, these low wages also perpetuate existing racial and gender-based wealth disparities.
Economic Impact
- Michigan’s economy loses an estimated $2.88 billion annually due to childcare issues
- Michigan misses an estimated $576 million annually in tax revenue due to childcare issues
- Childcare-related employee turnover and absenteeism cost Michigan employers an estimated $2.3 billion per year
Under the current model, to increase wages, parents would be responsible for incurring the costs of higher wages; however, childcare in Michigan is already too expensive. Every economic study of child care has come to the same conclusion – the public dollars dedicated are not enough to support the wages necessary for educated professionals who provide quality care, and parents of young kids cannot afford to pay more.
Aligned Efforts
Over two years ago, 16 communities across the state started developing plans to address the economic impact of instability in the child care system – and each community developed a plan of recommendations aligned to their unique assets and complications. In 2024, the Region 8 Child Care Plan was finalized – and the recommendations were joined together with the other 15 in a statewide report.
At the same time across Kalamazoo County individuals and organizations were discussing and prioritizing ways to decrease gun violence in our community, through the development of the Kalamazoo Blueprint for Peace.
If you have ever worked with young children, or tried to find affordable child care, it comes as no surprise that both plans prioritized addressing the impact of economic disparities for childcare workers, and the cost of child care for families.
To address these issues directly, by bringing impacted stakeholders together regularly in a focused coalition, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation provided funds to each area of Region 8, with the understanding that even the best recommendations in a report must have a team dedicated to their implementation.
What’s the problem with child care?
Child care as we know it in the United States is a failed business model. The level of public investment in child care does not support a living wage and child care owners have no mechanism to raise the wages of their staff without charging exorbitant tuition to families.
In Kalamazoo County, there are more than 270 licensed child care programs – we would need about 140 more to care for the number of kids in the County under 5. And even with this number of licensed programs, many are not able to enroll to their full capacity because of a shortage of teachers. The number one recommendation for expanding child care capacity is to pay teachers a higher wage. The average across all early childhood settings (in-home, center, school-based PreK, etc) is 14.04 an hour, which will be below the minimum wage in two years. In order for families to be able to find care when they need it, more child care centers need to be fully operational.
What are we doing about it?
In order to identify collaborators ready to find solutions across Kalamazoo County a new childcare coalition has formed which brings together child care experts and advocates, parent support programs, education and economic leaders, community, school district and county program directors, and funders. These monthly meetings started in 2024 and are laying the groundwork for a new analysis of the system that serves families with children under five across Kalamazoo County.
This effort, originally called the “Region 8 Child Care Plan Implementation Team” – has become the Kalamazoo Child Care Coalition or KCCC.
The KCCC serves as both the Kalamazoo County table for the Region 8 Child Care Coalition and a workgroup of the Blueprint for Peace GOAL 3 Working Group. Each County across Region 8 has a facilitated team working to address the recommendations, and all Blueprint working groups (supported by the members of the Blueprint for Peace Coordinating Council) are in the process of network mapping.
The State has identified 10 new Regional coalition leads – Region 8’s co-leads are Southwest Michigan First and the Sturgis Area Community Foundation. They are tasked with:
- Support child care business owners and non-profits to thrive and expand, with the goal of increasing access to full day/full year child care for working families.
- Ensure families in the region are engaged in the Coalition’s child care supply building.
- Address early childhood workforce gaps by working with the region’s child care employers and other partners.
- Align existing child care and Pre-K navigation resources so that working families have the information and financial resources they need.
- Expand TriShare participation by recruiting employers, child care businesses, and non-profits to support working families, communities, and economic development.
Members of the Kalamazoo Blueprint For Peace Coordinating Council serve on the KCCC and the Region Eight Coalition.
Resources
US Chamber Foundation: Untapped Potential in Michigan
https://chamber-foundation.files.svdcdn.com/production/documents/Untapped_MI_082523_DIGITAL.pdf
Balancing the Scales: A Systemwide Wage Scale to Address Michigan’s Child Care Crisis
https://talentfirst.net/publication/balancing-the-scales/
Statewide Regional Planning Report
https://www.ecic4kids.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Regional_Child_Care_Pl
anning_Michigan_Report_2024.pdf
Region 8 Child Care Plan https://pulseroadmap.org/supporting-materials/
Michigan League for Public Policy Confronting Michigan’s ECE Crisis
https://mlpp.org/confronting-michigans-early-childhood-workforce-crisis/
Michigan Child Care Industry Workforce Analysis
Michigan Early Care and Education Wage Pilot Case Study
Written by: Beth Berglin, Director of Policy and Strategy – Michigan Transformation Collective