Improving access to child care is more than just a social issue – it’s a strategic economic investment.
“Attracting new businesses and maintaining a strong workforce are simply not achievable without a supply of child care throughout the state that meets the needs of families,” said Joan Blough, senior director for the Child Care Innovation Fund at the Early Childhood Investment Corporation.
Yet child care in Genesee County and across the state and nation is unaffordable or inaccessible for many families, most of whom bear the entire cost themselves without government assistance.
Many call it a child care crisis.
In Michigan, child care issues result in an estimated $2.88 billion loss each year for the state’s economy, according to a report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. The report also showed child care-related issues in Michigan caused:
- $576 million lost annually in tax revenue
- $2.3 billion in employee turnover and absenteeism
- 63 percent of parents to miss work or class at least once in the past three months
- 14 percent of parents to leave a job in the past six months
In Genesee County, which has the lowest median household income in the region, 64% of parents report that cost is their top barrier to accessing child care.
This has major implications for the community’s economic health. Specifically, when child care becomes inaccessible, labor force participation drops, with mothers experiencing the most negative effects. Given the high percentage of mothers working outside the home, lack of access to reliable child care can seriously affect families’ economic security and hamper economic stability and growth.
“This is an all-hands-on-deck situation,” said Tyler Rossmaessler, executive director of the Flint & Genesee Economic Alliance, a division of the Flint & Genesee Group that works to attract businesses and investment in Genesee County. “We – employers, policymakers, and community organizations – need to think creatively and work collaboratively to develop solutions that support working families. Reliable child care is essential to keeping parents and legal guardians employed, businesses productive, and our local economy thriving.”
In recent years, Michigan has begun to address this crisis with new policies and the dedication of significant funds to ease the burden on families and providers – and to make the Great Lakes State more attractive to developers.
In 2023, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer created the new Michigan Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential (MiLEAP) department to consolidate early childhood and postsecondary education programs in a single department.
The department was mandated to “build a brighter future for Michigan from preschool to postsecondary to paycheck.”
One of those first-of-its-kind efforts called for the creation of regional coalitions to assess child care challenges in communities and make recommendations for changes to business and policy practices. Locally, the Early Childhood Investment Corporation awarded the Flint & Genesee Economic Alliance a grant to form the Genesee, Lapeer, Shiawassee, and St. Clair County Regional Child Care Coalition (GLSSC).
Throughout 2023, the coalition conducted extensive research and discussion groups that showed access to affordable child care is a worsening crisis in the GLSSC region.
Overall, the GLSSC’s findings confirmed that child care is unaffordable and unavailable for regional families and that providers face challenges recruiting and retaining qualified staff as well as the resources they need to thrive and expand.
The coalition released its action plan in December 2023 and is seeking additional funding opportunities to continue to support the action plan.
Two key points of the coalition’s plan involving the business community call for greater employer engagement in the issue and advocating for local, state, and federal policy change.
That’s because building a strong early learning and care infrastructure is essential to supporting families, fostering economic growth, and shaping the future of communities, said Kathy Szenda Wilson, founder and co-executive director at Pulse at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Kalamazoo.
Many employers and municipalities want to support working families but lack the resources and tools to do so, Szenda Wilson said. To address this need, Pulse created “roadmaps” to guide them.
Suggestions vary in complexity and cost. This includes Employee Assistance Programs, flexible scheduling, backup care, financial support, shared services through collaborations with providers, and onsite care.
Each roadmap outlines the solution’s difficulty and its impact on recruitment and retention, employee performance, organizational growth, brand impact, and community standing.
“We want to make sure that folks have an on-ramp wherever they are in the journey,” Szenda Wilson said.
A good first step for businesses is an employee survey. Too often employers don’t realize child care problems are affecting performance because employees are too afraid to mention it.
“I would say asking employees about their child care needs would be the No. 1 thing employers can do to get started, followed by partnering with other organizations to address those needs, and then advocating for increased investment into the child care system,” said Annette Sobocinski, executive director of the Child Care Network, a member of the GLSSC.
Business leaders advocating for child care solutions with peers and local, state, and national policymakers is also important.
“The more employers who are talking about the need for more support for child care, the more likely we’ll have movement on this issue in places of power,” Sobocinski said.
One of those new initiatives is Tri-Share.
Michigan was the first state to create a program of this kind, in which the cost of an employee’s child care cost is split three ways between the employer, the employee, and the State of Michigan. Its goal is to make child care more affordable so working parents can remain in or re-enter the workforce.
Employee eligibility for Tri-Share is based on family size and household income. The savings for families is significant: Parents who formerly paid $10,000 annually for a child’s care, for example, would see their bill reduced to just over $3,300.
Participating employers have the flexibility to decide for themselves how many child care slots they offer employees and the maximum dollar amount invested. Tri-Share facilitator hubs assist businesses and provide regional coordination.
With 12 Tri-Share employers, Genesee County has the fourth highest number of participants preceded by Grand Traverse (28), Kalamazoo (20), and Washtenaw (16) counties.
The largest local Tri-Share employer is Genesee County itself.
“One major barrier for people seeking to return to the workforce (post-pandemic) continues to be the high cost of child care,” said Jared Field, the county’s director of communications. “We recognized a need that existed among some of our employees with small children, as well as among prospective employees, and the Board of Commissioners invested the necessary funds to make it happen.”
The program began last May and now serves 24 county employees. The board set aside $150,000 this fiscal year for Tri-Share and believes participation will increase as more employees become aware of the benefit.
“(Tri-Share) represents another powerful tool in our toolbox for retaining and recruiting employees,” Field said.
Like Genesee County, more employers and policymakers are beginning to see that reliable, affordable child care is fundamental to our well-being.
“When you’re supporting the child, the family, and the small business child care provider, it makes for stronger communities overall – and that benefits employers as well,” Sobocinski said.