Texas mothers need good childcare, not empty words about family values | Editorial
All over Texas this weekend, mothers and other caregivers are smiling at plates of charred toast and cards with flowery verse. But many of these nurturers are filled with despair. Despite its poetry about family values, Texas does little to ease the burden of finding affordable, quality childcare.
After years of rock-bottom spending on its affordable childcare program, the state is now in a childcare crisis. What Texas does spend goes to meet the minimum requirement to get federal grants. While the state will head into the next legislative session with an estimated budget surplus of $21 billion, 95,000 Texas children are on a waiting list for affordable childcare. Other states, in contrast, are facing childcare needs head on: last year, for instance, Florida injected $100 million to its affordable childcare program.
Bigger problems loom ahead. Federal pandemic funding for Texas childcare ended last fall. Yet the pandemic damage to childcare continues. Between March 2020 and January 2023, Texas lost a stunning 5,000 childcare facilities. Today, more than half of Texas counties are childcare deserts – with at least three times as many children who need licensed childcare as there are spaces to take them. Centers struggle to find workers for the average wage of $12 an hour.
Now Texas is staring down care provider shortages, price spikes and possible mass closures. The 2025 Legislature needs to address this crisis for what it is, with substantive measures to expand childcare – and funds for it.
A history of neglect and underinvestment in childcare
Even before the pandemic, Texas’ commitment to affordable childcare rang hollow. Inefficient and underfunded, the state system accommodated only a fraction of eligible families.
After the pandemic struck, the federal government kept many Texas facilities afloat with more than $5.9 billion in stimulus funds to the Texas Workforce Commission. But that funding ended this fall. (An ongoing program, Texas Rising Star, qualifies facilities to get federal funds by meeting certain quality standards).
Without federal assistance, and lacking major investment from Texas, working families now are hard pressed. More than 40 percent of existing childcare facilities, a 2023 survey found, were in danger of shutting down. For lower-income parents, it’s hard to imagine more pressure than they already endure. Already, a Texas family with a baby pays an average of $777 a month for care. Childcare issues are also forcing Texas parents to lose ground at work. A survey by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation found childcare problems prompted 10 percent of respondents to shift from fulltime to parttime work, forced seven percent to leave their jobs, and led to 5 percent getting fired.
The fallout of this crisis is above all human. Poor care, especially in a child’s first five years, correlates to a bleak range of emotional, economic, professional – even criminal – issues later. But this is also an economic crisis. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, Texas loses an estimated $9.39 billion every year due to failures of childcare. Of special interest to taxpayer advocates, the group notes that the fractured system costs Texas an estimated $1.8 billion in lost tax revenues.
A self-inflicted crisis a long time in the making
This crisis, as the Editorial Board has said before, is the state’s own doing. For years Texas has shortchanged the program that helps working families pay for childcare. But Texas’ plight is worsened by the aftermath of Covid, population growth, and yawning income disparities. To mend it, the Legislature needs to authentically prioritize families. Among the measures to consider, notes the University of Texas LBJ Urban Lab, are higher reimbursements, tax exemptions, and low-interest loans to nudge childcare centers to expand. Tax credits and other incentives can help employers support childcare at work.
There are signs Texas is developing the leadership to meet this emergency. Last year, Texas gave state employees eight weeks of paid parental leave for mothers and birthing parent plus four weeks to fathers and non-birthing parents. And this spring, announcing their priorities for study before the legislative session, both the House and Senate leadership called for examination of childcare issues.
Local coordination and partnerships are critical too. Austin City Council member Alison Alter showcased how it can work: immediately after Texas voters passed a 2023 constitutional amendment granting property tax breaks to eligible childcare centers, she spearheaded a local measure to extend the break to home-based and family providers.
Another intriguing initiative is the Affordable Childcare Now coalition, helmed by the United Way. The goal: asking Travis County Commissioners to place a voter-approved tax rate election on the ballot, proposing a modest monthly tax rate hike. This would fund affordable childcare measures such as year-round, full-day care. The plan merits attention.
No one likes taxes. But Texas is already facing billions in lost tax revenue, not to mention immense loss of providers and a generation of Texan children deprived of affordable care. Texas needs to prove its dedication to mothers – and fathers, and children – with funding, not words.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas moms need better childcare, not empty words about family values
