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Metro Detroit is a childcare desert. The Center for American Progress estimates that the country could lose half of its licensed child care capacity without government intervention. The state of childcare supply prior to the COVID-19 pandemic was already alarming, the crisis has placed a spotlight on the disparity now that more parents are working from home.

As with many other aspects of social and economic inequality, the coronavirus pandemic has underscored large differences in proximity and access to licensed child care across income and racial lines. COVID-19 appears to have taken a greater toll on Hispanic and Black communities, both in terms of the public health threat and the economic impact. Prior to the pandemic, most child care deserts were in low- and middle-income communities, including many predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods, and were practically ubiquitous across rural America.

Child care businesses operate with high costs, tight revenues, and slim operating margins, even though many child care educators are paid near-poverty wages. This is because the core factor that drives the quality of care—low child-to-staff ratios—means that these programs are highly labor intensive without economies of scale. There is no automation revolution or technological fix that can lower the cost of providing quality child care. Most child care revenues come from parental fees, which puts a sizable dent in working families’ budgets. According to a CAP analysis of family expenditures on licensed child care, the typical working family with a child under age 5 spent more than $12,000 on child care in 2015. But in many communities, there are not enough families who can cover the full cost of child care, and child care subsidies provided by the state and federal government reach just 1 in every 6 eligible children.

Child care is essential for families and for the broader economy. This was true before the coronavirus crisis and may be even more widely accepted now that millions of people are working from home or laid off or furloughed until it is safe for most businesses to reopen. But the precarious state of the child care sector prior to this disruption cannot be overstated. Even in a good economy, child care programs and families with young children have a hard time financing high costs with little public funding. If the United States allows this critical piece of economic infrastructure to fail, the landscape of child care will look vastly different—and not for the better.

Without federal intervention, it is possible that licensed, reliable, high-quality child care will become a privilege of the wealthy, while millions of young children will end up in care of uncertain safety, reliability, and quality. Child care deserts will become the norm, holding back millions of working families, particularly working mothers, in the middle-class communities that were already falling behind economically prior to the pandemic.

This country is at a major pivot point, facing a potentially decimated child care system that would prevent many parents from returning to work. This moment emphasizes how deeply Americans rely on one another to make this world-leading economy work. Leaders who understand this fact should use it to guide bold policy and funding decisions that support broader access to quality, affordable child care.