New Pattern report examines the state of childcare in the Hudson Valley
Childcare is essential to support our workforce and educate our kids. Why is this service steadily dwindling in the Hudson Valley?
Families throughout the Hudson Valley rely on affordable, high-quality childcare to jumpstart the education of their kids and allow parents and guardians to get to work. That's why many civic leaders turned their attention to childcare in recent years as the service became more expensive and harder to find, and as childcare businesses closed because of the economic whiplash caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Stories of childcare stress abound throughout the Hudson Valley. Parents in rural areas have been forced to drive long distances to get childcare because local providers have closed. Those seeking childcare have faced year-long waiting lists that hold them in limbo. Employers who want to provide on-site childcare for their workers are often turned back by tough and complex regulations. Young families are buried by the cost of childcare, which rivals the cost of a mortgage. Licensed childcare providers have struggled to balance their finances as universal pre-K took moved thousands of 4-year-old kids into public schools, taking away a valued source of revenue for childcare businesses. And childcare workers struggled to stay in a profession they love because it pays some of the lowest wages of any service job in the region.