A new survey of small business owners from rural parts of the country shows that 87% believe it has been difficult for working parents to afford high-quality child care programs for their children.
The survey found that small businesses across the country, and especially in rural areas, are wanting to grow, said Janetta King, Midwest regional director for Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Voices, which conducted the study.
“But the No. 1 challenge that they have is hiring and retaining workers. And one of the reasons that they cite for hiring and retaining being such a challenge is the lack of access to affordable childcare in their communities,” King told the Daily Yonder in an interview. “We found that this challenge is exacerbated in rural areas,” she said. “Rural small business owners who want to grow, who want to expand, are citing lack of childcare as one of the reasons that they are unable to do that.”
The study also found that 66% of rural small businesses say their communities do not have enough high-quality and affordable child care programs. That’s 9 percentage points higher than the general population, where 57% say that child care is lacking in their communities. Additionally, 43% of rural small businesses say that a lack of child care has had a negative impact on their ability to operate or grow their businesses, which is 5 percentage points higher than the general population, in which 38% say that a lack of child care has had a negative impact on their ability to operate or grow their businesses.
“Childcare is very expensive,” King said. “For some candidates who are considering going back to work, they look at the cost of childcare in relation to what they might be making and their job. And the math doesn’t add up. And so they’re opting not to enter into the workforce because childcare is so expensive. So it’s both an affordability issue and an access issue. And for our small business owners, it’s a competitiveness issue, especially in rural areas.”
Ashley Kingdon-Reese is a graduate of the Goldman Sachs program and runs multiple businesses in rural South Dakota, especially in-home care for aging adults and disabled individuals.
The age at which people can do that sort of work, she said, is the mid-point of life, when many have children to take care of.
“We really had to pivot and change even how we do everything from orientation, to their onboarding,” Kingdon-Reese said during a phone interview. “What we started doing is in lieu of or where their options are a match for daycare, and using things like co-ops with other agencies who are facing the same problems.”
Instead of working three 12-hour shifts like what is normal in the industry, Kingdon-Reese has her employees work a more traditional schedule so that they can be home for their kids.
“Our morning meetings start at 8:15 as the kids get to school, and we set up carpools,” she said. “And we rotate. It’s been some strategizing just to make sure that you’re able to start the job.”
Sarah Rittling, executive director of the First Five Years Fund — an organization dedicated to working with Congress and the Administration to increase support in early childhood education — said there just isn’t enough child care across the board, no matter where one lives.
“We have a lack of availability, and [it] tends to be incredibly expensive and unaffordable for families,” she said in a Zoom interview.
Head Start is one policy solution, Rittling said. There’s also a bill called “Expanding Child Care in Rural America,” which would be attached to the Farm Bill and prioritize projects that would address availability, quality and cost of childcare in rural communities. The bill was introduced in 2023 by Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and had a committee hearing in April.
Tax credits are another important policy initiative, she added. There’s “a tax credit called the Child Dependent Care Tax Credit to help offset the cost of care,” Rittling said. “It’s in dire need of updating both in costs and also refundability in order to reach some families who need it the most.”
Rittling said people need to come together to address the issue.
“What we do know is that despite the fact that these are unique challenges and differences, we have to come together and come up with some solutions, because it’s affecting everybody,” she added.
This article first appeared on The Daily Yonder and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
