Twin Cities child care industry stabilized by grants during pandemic
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The pandemic has not decimated the child care industry in the Twin Cities as some had feared, but providers remain on edge as they wait to see if they will get long-term support from the state.
Why it matters: Minnesota has a declining birth rate and a workforce shortage. Affordable child care helps solve both those problems.
State of play: The metro area's licensed child care capacity is down less than 1% since the start of the pandemic, according to Minnesota Department of Human Services data.
- The state, with help from federal pandemic relief money, stabilized the industry through grants that boosted wages for teachers, said Chad Dunkley, president of the Minnesota Child Care Association.
- Despite some closures, Minnesota has fared better than states that didn’t aid their child care providers, said Ann McCully, executive director at Child Care Aware of Minnesota.
What's happening: Child care providers lost income in the early months of the pandemic when parents kept their kids home. Now the demand is back up, but there's a shortage of teachers.
- Dunkley who is also CEO of New Horizon Academy, says his company has space for 2,000 more kids, but doesn’t have enough teachers to care for them.
Zoom in: The health of the child care industry is uneven. In-home providers have been on the decline for more than a decade, citing long hours, lack of health benefits, burdensome regulations, lack of substitutes and training requirements.
- In the pandemic, those home-based providers were less likely to take advantage of state and federal assistance programs because they were "just trying to keep their doors open," McCully said.
- The Twin Cities lost 550 providers in the past three years and rural Minnesota has been hit even harder by the loss of home-based care.
What's ahead: State grants to providers are set to expire in June, but a bill in the legislature would continue those grants and provide more scholarships for low-income families.