Pandemic-era federal funding to keep Hawaiʻi child care businesses afloat is set to expire this year. It comes at a time when demand for child care has skyrocketed, and many are leaving the industry because of low pay.
Deborah Zysman, the executive director of the nonprofit Hawaiʻi Children's Action Network, said that with more parents returning to the workplace, there is only one open child care spot for every four children.
She said the lack of available child care services predates the pandemic.
"Leading up to the pandemic, we were seeing declines in the number of child care providers. It's estimated we lost about 20% of our child care spots even before the pandemic," Zysman said. "Largely they were saying they just couldn't afford it."
Financial support during the pandemic allowed providers to stay open despite fluctuating enrollments as families stayed home. The last of that money ends this year.
"We don't want to charge families more, because they're already paying quite a lot of money. We need to grow the sector. We need to have more seats. And so the only way really to do that is with more government money going in to help build out that infrastructure."
Zysman hopes state lawmakers will pass and fund a bill that would establish subsidies to increase wages — similar to the federal pandemic-era program. Retention and recruitment are the biggest challenges in the industry, she said.
"University of Hawaiʻi did a study a year and a half ago and found that the average wage for our child care professionals at that time was $13 to $17 an hour. So that's like $31,000 a year. It's well below a living wage," she said.
"We hear from child care providers all the time. They might have a bachelor's degree in the field. They love working with young children, and they simply can't afford it."
House Bill 1964 will be heard in the Senate Ways and Means Committee on Thursday at 10:15 a.m.
This story aired on The Conversation on April 3, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1. Sophia McCullough adapted this story for the web.
