HARRISBURG, Pa. — While Pennsylvania lawmakers lay out their plans to tackle child care costs in the state, the burden of those costs are weighing heavily on both parents and child care providers.
The cost of child care has now grown to more than $12,000 per child per year on average in the state, leaving single mothers like Cierra Brown of Harrisburg wondering about the future.
"I had my kids get dropped out of daycare," Brown said. "If you’re not receiving child care network, you're barely making it."
Three of Brown's children attend Kids Academy in Harrisburg thanks to subsidies she receives from Pennsylvania's Child Care Works program. Daycare centers like Kid's Academy, however, are also struggling due to a lack of quality educators available for hire.
"Our teachers work very hard," said Kids Academy director Robin Spicher. "And they deserve more pay than what they actually receive. But with the economy the way it is, we can’t afford to pay them more wages. But if we do increase our pricing, then we would probably lose some of our families. So we've kind of been under freeze for over a year and not increasing their tuition."
The rock/hard place dilemma on whether to raise the price of attendance to keep teachers has faced nearly every child care center in Pennsylvania.
According to data from Strong Start PA, child care educators on average earn $40,000 less than kindergarten teachers, and their wages fail to meet the cost of living in every county. That’s contributed to more than 3,300 vacancies for child care educators, leading to over 16,000 fewer children receiving child care.
"We have the capability to serve 60 children," Spicher said. "And we currently have 32. But until we get more educated and qualified staff, we have to pause our enrolling."
Proposals from lawmakers on how to address the problem include removing income caps for subsidies, and investing more in the Child Care Works system to increase the reimbursement rate for centers.
For providers like Spicher, any help from the government is sorely needed.
"It depends on Pennsylvania, honestly, for the outlook of early childhood at this point," Spicher said. "We all need help."