The cost of child care has been growing faster than the rate of inflation for the last 25 years in King County, and shows little sign of slowing as parents are stuck spending more of their paychecks on daycare service. A new report released by King County outlines the challenges and gives recommendations for dealing with limited access and rising costs.<\/p>\n
“There’s a child care crisis in King County,” said Sarah Reyneveld, chair of the King County Women’s Advisory Board and Washington state assistant attorney general.<\/p>\n
Even for Reyneveld and her husband, who works as a prosecuting attorney, the couple shells out more than $50,000 a year for high-end child care for their two children, a cost which has stretched their finances.<\/p>\n
“I can imagine for a lot of low-income families this being more of a cost burden to them and a significant challenge,” she said.<\/p>\n
The Women’s Advisory Board began its two-year study examining the impacts of child care costs in 2017 and released its findings in a February report. It shows a lack of access to quality child care across the county that impacts families, employers and the broader economy. The reporter also highlights that the low supply of child care providers is failing to meet demand. What providers there are, remain unevenly distributed around the region. Some relief is found in state child care subsidy programs, but they do not offer the same level of assistance to parents who reside in downtown Seattle and those living in rural areas like Omak.<\/p>\n
“Omak might be a whole lot cheaper, meaning some families need some additional assistance to deal with a difference in price,” said Karol Brown, member of the advisory board.<\/p>\n
Areas with high housing costs subsequently have a high cost of child care, Brown said. High housing costs also push people further from urban centers to find cheaper housing and daycare, contributing to longer commute times and adding to traffic problems.<\/p>\n
While families in King County pay more for child care than many places in the U.S., it also has a higher portion of families with children under five who are living below 150 percent of the federal poverty level. That affects women the hardest, but especially women of color, women living in rural areas, low-income and younger women. And while the costs of child care are high, child care providers are some of the lowest paid workers among professions.<\/p>\n
The report states the median monthly cost for full-time infant care is more than $1,500, and many families pay even more, averaging about $24,000 annually. Families making 100 percent of the area median income (AMI) are often spending nearly one-quarter of their income on child care, and that is on top of the high cost of housing in the county.<\/p>\n
A lack of providers in the Seattle area has created long wait lists, with parents signing up for child care before their child is even born. There are roughly 127,500 children under the age of five in the county, the report shows, but existing child care providers can only handle about half that number.<\/p>\n
“We’ve found that the pace of the number of facilities, child care spaces, have not kept up with the population,” Brown said. “Limited supply and growing demand makes the price go up.”<\/p>\n
Waiting<\/strong><\/p>\n For parents like Marilyn Lopez, the birth of her first daughter Sage ( who goes by her middle name Cecilia) meant she had little experience with motherhood, much less the specific parenting challenges found in King County. “(This) wasn’t something I thought about, that I should get on a wait list for child care,” she said. She’s entering her second year of waiting for an open spot at El Centro De La Raza, a bilingual center with locations in Beacon Hill and the International District.<\/p>\n The scarcity meant utilizing nanny sharing, a tactic Lopez discovered on an electronic mailing service she subscribed to after moving to south Seattle from Texas. A family had posted about finding other parents to split the cost of a nanny with. “It’s complete strangers coming together and bringing their kids along,” Lopez chuckled.<\/p>\n Alinne Freitas has seen the effects of the shortage, even in her small, home-based Kirkland center Love Laugh Learn. Her wait list is about two years, and she’s seen an uptick in the number of people contacting her for child care in the last three years, she said.<\/p>\n Part of the shortage of child care stems from a lack of locations where new day cares can set up, she said.<\/p>\n “I don’t think we have enough commercial spaces for day cares because the requirements are so high,” Freitas said.<\/p>\n