ST PETERSBURG, Fla. — Some Tampa Bay parents are struggling to not only find child care but also afford the cost as it outpaces the price of housing for some families, according to a report by Child Care Aware of America.
“We got kicked off the waitlist for three different home daycares before Ellowynne was even born, so yes, very stressful part of my unplanned pregnancy,” said Pinellas County mother Morgan Nelson. “I was on six different waiting lists of the only six places I could find that would take zero to one (year old.) I had no idea how I was going to go back to work at all.”
Nelson said she kept calling the learning center next to her work in Clearwater that had a capped closed waitlist of 45 families. She eventually got in.
“I am beyond thankful every day that I dropped my daughter off there because it is just literally the only solution,” she exclaimed. But that solution is still $385 a week.
According to Child Care Aware of America (CCAoA), the cost of child care in the U.S. averaged about $11,000 a year in 2022. That’s 10% of a married couple’s salary and 33% of a single parent’s salary for one child.
Nelson’s yearly bill is closer to $20,000.
CCAoA also found the price of care for two children exceeded average housing costs in the Midwest, the Northeast and the South. It also exceeds annual in-state tuition across the country.
With people moving to Tampa Bay at record rates, the rise in the cost of child care is a reflection of demand and inflation. The Early Learning Center of Pinellas County adds that many centers are also short-staffed and have to leave children on the waitlist.
The childcare crisis is why it’s a day of celebration in St. Petersburg at the grand opening of the newly renovated Happy Workers R’club Early Learning Academy, now big enough for nearly 150 children with eligibility for scholarships.
“We received $350,000 from the legislature. We have received donations from private funders, and we have received Juvenile Welfare Board funding as well,” said Debra Ballinger, Executive Director R’Club Child Care.
The early education center’s focus is on ages zero to five, with emphasis on two months to three years old.
“One of the greatest needs is for the Zero to Three population,” Ballinger explained. “We find that families are desperately seeking quality education for their younger children and the costs that's involved with zero to three with the lower ratios and all of the mandates sometimes is very prohibiting for certain families.”
St Petersburg mother Brittany Dillard has three children enrolled at the Happy Day R’Club center.
“Having childcare… is honestly on the same level as having a mortgage,” she exclaimed. “Having your children in school and especially in a place like happy workers where they can receive a quality education, you know that they're being educated for the amount that you're paying is definitely a really big deal.”
“Eighty percent of the brain is developed in the first three years and yet there are not enough high-quality early learning institutions in places in Pinellas County or elsewhere,” said Beth Houghton, CEO/Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County. “So our funding is about a million dollars towards this project on an annual basis not just to assure that it is here and it provides the care that you would find in other places, but that it is a higher level of care.”
The Florida legislature recently approved an additional million dollars into the state’s school readiness program to help parents afford child care, but most working families don’t qualify.
“The Early Learning Center of Pinellas County has partnered with the Juvenile Welfare Board to create an additional expanded scholarship program to help some of those families to start meeting those needs and reach, but there’s more that needs to be done,” said Lindsay Carson, with the Early Learning Coalition of Pinellas County.
The Economic Policy Institute recommends state childcare reform that caps families’ childcare expenses at 7% of their income.
They said this would, in turn, allow more than 75,000 parents to enter the labor force and generate $7.6 billion for the economy.
"The Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (CCDBG) is a law that authorizes the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) program. CCDF is administered by states, territories and tribes and outlines how federal funds will be used to provide financial assistance to low-income families to access child care. This hub page provides information on CCDBG and the CCDF state plans, which states are currently in the process of developing for years 2022-2024."
