Eye On Illinois: Get familiar with child care stats while lawmakers plan to address challenges

Numbers tell a story, but rarely without help.

Anyone who has tried to use professional child care services will connect with some aspect of Tuesday’s report from Molly Parker of Capitol News Illinois, in partnership with ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network. (tinyurl.com/ChildCareObstacle). Parker detailed five ways the state and federal government have struggled to remedy a loss of 4,300 facilities and 38,000 spots for kids over the past decade, an overall 33% decline.

It’s useful information and analysis at the start of a legislative session, complete with the context of Gov. JB Pritzker’s repeated commitment to make Illinois the “best state in the nation for families raising young children.” It would be surprising to get to the end of the fiscal year without a substantial legislative effort to address some of these issues, which makes now a good time to try to better understand some of the statistics and their origin.

The top-line number is that 60% of rural Americans live in a “child care desert.” In rural Illinois, the number approaches 70%. Statewide, the figure is 58%, according to the Center for American Progress, which operates childcaredeserts.org. After breaking down the country by census tracts, a desert is any such subdivision with more than 50 children age 4 and younger that is either void of providers or has a child to slot ratio of at least 3:1.

Using numbers from 2019, the CAP said Illinois had 928,356 children younger than 6. Of those, 68% came from families without a parent who stays home with the kids. The average annual child care cost for two kids was $23,599. That’s about $1,967 per month or $454 per week. Obviously the percentage of household budget that cost consumes varies based on parent income, but suffice it to say quality care isn’t cheap, but even having the money to pay doesn’t guarantee an available provider.

One likely state effort is spending another $45 million on early childhood facilities, exhausting the remainder of $100 million set aside in the 2019 capital improvement plan. (The plan itself was worth $45 billion.) But that clearly won’t be enough to meet demands given the January 2023 payouts sent $55 million to eight programs, leaving 230 other applicants waiting for their turn.

This is just a glimpse at a few numbers informing the debate. Diving deep on the methodology for calculating deserts might require advanced data science credentials, but it’s important for regular folks and elected officials to have a working knowledge in order to participate in meaningful discussions about solutions.

As with most issues, a big cash infusion could address several challenges, but unallocated dollars are rare in Springfield. Reversing these trends also requires understanding, dedication and creativity.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.