By Christa Tinsley, Project Associate.

During the community input phase of each project we work on, a comment we usually hear repeated in almost every community is regarding the lack of adequate or quality child care options for working families. In the past, child care has been seen as a welfare or social services issue, rather than a critical component of successful economic development; therefore, business recruitment, retention, and expansion efforts did not usually consider a more holistic infrastructure for a prospering local economy. Roads, technology, housing, and airports all help workers get to their jobs and help firms perform their services – and so does an effective child care network.

Lately, we’ve been hearing a lot about the move for all states to offer full pre-K programs and the importance of early childhood development on future learning success. Best practice initiatives such as the Harlem Children’s Zone have sparked the White House and individual communities (e.g. Austin, TX) to try to replicate these efforts for the same outstanding outcomes.

But not only do child care programs prepare young minds for primary school, they increase productivity by enabling parents to go to work.  Small businesses and employers of low- to mid-income workers often face the most strain on productivity as workers have difficulty affording the cost of child care services and may be scrambling to make other arrangements for their young children from week to week.

The business of child care is a big deal, both in the critical services it provides and the impact it has locally and statewide. According to an economic impact study by the University of Georgia and Georgia State University, Georgia’s child care and early education industry generates $4.1 billion per year in economic activity and supports parental wages of $13.6 billion per year (but may be as large as $32.7 billion). The child care industry annually employs more than 61,000 individuals with an employment multiplier of 1.21, meaning that the industry generates an additional 12,900 jobs in other sectors in Georgia. The industry also generates $117 million in federal, state, and local tax revenues local tax revenues each year.

What can communities do to support child care options for working families? A good start is creating resource and referral networks and pools to exchange information and share services. New partnerships encourage quality, diverse services, Chambers of commerce can include business management training and strategic programs for child care businesses in order to help service providers increase profitability while directing more caring for and educating young children. Applying the same business retention and expansion strategies as chambers and EDOs create for other industries to small child care businesses (both for-profit and not-for-profit) has two-way benefits – for both the child care facilities and the firms that employ working parents.

Professional development in the field of child care employees has lagged behind other educational and service occupations as wages are often low and turnover is very high. Building skills in the child care industry workforce through programs such as the T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood Project increases worker sustainability, professionalism, and quality and assures working parents that their children are in good hands.

Economic development and planning professionals may push for zoning for child care facilities near industrial parks in order to locate quality services near employment hubs. Other key locations for child care facilities include near housing and transportation. A child care tax credit rewards employers that encourage quality of life policies, such as building on-site facilities or to providing other child care access to employees; parental tax credits can also be available to help families offset the cost of care. Communities and states may also offer tax credits designed to attract charitable contributions to promote child care in order to fund vouchers and subsidies.

Cornell University’s Linking Child Care and Economic Development program offers many more strategies for building quality sustainable child care networks. Adding child care services to a community’s economic development infrastructure is an essential move to promoting prosperity and quality of life.