Utah has a child care crisis.
A new report offers 33 recommendations to address the issues, but it will be up to state lawmakers and leaders whether or not any of the suggestions get put into action.
The “Childcare Solutions and Workplace Productivity Plan” was commissioned by state lawmakers with a focus on how to expand access to safe, affordable, quality child care. They allocated $150,000 and hired the Washington, D.C.-based Early Learning Policy Group to complete the report.
Before diving into suggestions, the 83-page plan provides a comprehensive overview of just how bad things are. The Early Learning Policy Group pulled from previous studies and recent data and conducted dozens of focus groups and interviews.
The summary didn’t mince words.
“Child care is not affordable,” it read.
The report says the majority of mothers in Utah are working, which is largely due to the high costs of raising a family.
“Parents enter the workforce because they don’t have another choice,” said a parent quoted in the report. “Most are dual income, but they don’t have a choice. It’s a big issue for families.”
Among households with both parents working full-time, 74% of those with children under the age of six said they needed two incomes to cover household expenses. Another parent quoted in the report said they wanted four kids but chose not to have more because they couldn’t support them.
It’s particularly hard for families with young children. The report says for a family of three, about 14.9% of their income would be required to pay for licensed center-based infant care.
It’s not just about being able to pay for care, it’s also about finding it. Many parents reported they prefer licensed child care but there’s a shortage throughout the state. Four counties — Daggett, Piute, Rich and Wayne — have no licensed providers. The report estimates the number of licensed child care slots in Utah only meets 14.1% of the need.
Utah lawmakers loosened regulations for unlicensed child care providers in 2024 by increasing the number of children they can have.
Providers also reported staffing challenges. The median wage for child care workers is $14.61 per hour.
“They can work at McDonald’s or Staples for $20 per hour,” one provider in the report said. “Even Zupas pays $18.50 per hour. Add the demands of the workforce, and we can’t keep people.”.
The policy director for the advocacy group Voices for Utah Children, Anna Thomas, was not surprised by the findings. She praised it as a solid report and plan.
The recommendations in the plan come in five categories: child care supply, workforce, child behavior, care affordability and accessibility, and employer public-private partnerships.
Some of the recommendations don’t need more money from the state to be implemented, like requiring that voluntary data-reporting fields be mandatory so that policymakers have better information. The report points out the state receives some federal funds that have not been allocated and could be used for child care.
Some of the recommendations would require state investments.
One would double the amount of the funding the state gives to onsite high-quality, preschool classrooms by reducing funding for a state-funded 15-minute-a-day online preschool program. Funding for the high-quality program has been frozen at $12 million since 2020, according to the report, “which has resulted in a decline of children served to 1,955 statewide.”
Thomas thinks the recommendations are common sense and realistic. She would love to see lawmakers pick 20 of the easiest ones to work on for the next few years with a partnership between the Legislature and governor. While it wouldn’t completely solve the problem, Thomas said that would be a good faith effort towards improving things.
“It doesn’t come from advocates like us,” she said. “It’s not the plan we would write, for sure, it’s much more measured. It’s all about political viability.”
Still, Thomas feels cynical about the odds of lawmakers reading the report they paid for. She jokingly said she’d give $500 to any lawmaker who read every word of it.
The suggestion to create this plan came from the Women in the Economy Subcommittee, which is co-chaired by Republican Rep. Karianne Lisonbee.
When Lisonbee spoke with KUER, several days after the plan was released, she had not read the report and said she couldn’t comment on it. Lisonbee intends to read it before the 2025 Legislative Session.
Lisonbee is planning to sponsor her own bill that would introduce a tax credit for businesses of all sizes that provide on-site child care services. The plan also recommends that idea.
“I think that is probably the most important piece of legislation we're looking at this year in the child care space,” Lisonbee said.
There have also been talks, the Republican said, about expanding the child tax credit and incentivizing municipalities to build more day care centers.
Subcommittee co-chair, Democrat Sen. Luz Escamilla, looked over the 33 recommendations but had not read the full report in detail. One of the things that stood out to her is the vast number of families struggling with child care. There’s not a specific profile for those struggling, she said, it’s every Utah family.
“Most of these kiddos live in a two-parent family setup,” Escamilla said.
One of the recommendations is to pass a bill that Escamilla proposed in 2024 but ultimately failed. It would have turned obsolete state-owned buildings into child care facilities and leased them to employers. She plans to run that bill again during the 2025 session.
In an ideal world, Escamilla said she would provide direct subsidies to families to help with the cost of child care instead of indirect solutions, like tax credits that come at the end of the year. Escamilla, who is in the minority caucus, said she’s been told in the past by legislative leaders that direct subsidies would probably not happen.
According to ProPublica, Utah lawmakers made no direct financial investments in child care during the last legislative session.
“People need help now,” Escamilla said.
