Before Callie Silver and Scott Houck welcomed their son, Wesley, into the world in June, they always saw themselves as day care parents.
Figuring out their specific child care situation was always on the to-do list during pregnancy, but more often than not, they found themselves leaving the conversation frustrated.
“We just kind of kept saying, like, oh, let's just talk about it next week,” Silver said at their home near Sugar House Park in Salt Lake City. “It just kept getting kicked down the road.”
Affordability is the big topic of discussion for many families. The typical cost for infant care, the most expensive kind, is around $1,100 per month in Utah.
Silver works at an education nonprofit, and Houck recently sold a small local business and is between jobs. Part of their ongoing frustration, said Silver, was because of some of that professional uncertainty.
“I think that we are in this, you know, catch-22 that a lot of people find themselves in where you don't really want to get or pay for child care, unless, you know, both parents are full-time, gainfully employed,” she said. “But then, how do you do that? How do you become that, unless you have child care?”
Right now, their child care situation is what they call a hodge-podge. They are fortunate to have grandparents nearby who help out two days a week. The rest of the time, Silver works reduced hours, and they tag-team watching their son while Houck is on the job hunt.
“I've had the opportunity to spend more time with Wes, which has been great on the child care front so far,” Houck said. “However, I don't wish to continue to have this be the situation forever.”
When they do start looking more seriously at day care, there’s no guarantee it will be smooth sailing. That’s because there simply aren’t enough spots.
According to a 2023 report by the nonprofit Voices for Utah Children, the state only has enough licensed child care providers to serve roughly 36% of working families with children under the age of six. That leaves nearly two-thirds of families to rely on alternative arrangements like grandparents stepping in or parents changing their work schedules.
One study from the Center for American Progress found that as of 2019, about 77% of the state lives in what’s considered a “child care desert,” the highest in the nation. A child care desert is defined as an area where there are too few slots available for the number of children who need them.
And when the Salt Lake County Council narrowly voted in October to close its subsidized day care programs, the families of 270 children were left looking for alternatives.
Susan Madsen, director and founder of the Utah Women and Leadership Project and a Utah State University business professor, thinks about the current state of child care in Utah a lot.
“If we really are a family-friendly state, we need to make all elements of a family's life friendly,” she said.
She calls the child care shortage a market failure.
“It is very stressful for our families,” she said. “We're really in a more conservative state, and more conservative states tend to still believe that child care is a private issue, not necessarily a public issue.”
In Salt Lake County, the council’s Republican majority argued that providing low-cost day care was not the county’s role, in their reasoning for ending the child care program. State lawmakers also shot down a bill last legislative session that would have allowed obsolete state-owned buildings to be converted into child care centers.
When it comes to affordability, Utah is middle of the pack. According to data from the Economic Policy Institute, Utah ranks as the 30th most expensive place for child care in the country, including Washington, D.C.
It is most expensive for the youngest children. The typical cost for infant care in Utah is around $13,000 per year. For comparison, that’s more expensive than Mississippi at $6,800, but a far cry from D.C., which will set you back more than $28,000 per year.
The state has stepped in to offset some of the costs. The Legislature passed a law in 2023 allowing for a $1,000 tax credit per child under 6 years old, although that full amount is only open to households that make less than $54,000 per year.
There’s also a child care assistance program run by the Department of Workforce Services that can provide monthly stipends for families who meet certain income thresholds.
While Madsen said the conversation around child care has improved in the last few years, there's still a long way to go.
“I think there's that lack of understanding, that even openness to say this is a conversation we have to have in the public domain, not just expecting families to pick it up,” she said.
One couple that is making child care work in their budget is Halli and Reid Jacobson. Their daughter, Sophia, was born in March and attends a Montessori school in Salt Lake City.
Getting there, however, was no walk in the park.
“When I got pregnant, we kept hearing these horror stories of people that were on waiting lists and ended up having to pay so much more than they had ever planned for because they couldn't get into where they wanted,” Halli said.
She and her husband began seriously touring day care facilities during her first trimester of pregnancy and said her best piece of advice is to get on waiting lists as soon as possible — ideally before your baby is born. It is rare to find a day care arrangement with immediate openings.
When it came to their budget, a series of honest conversations led to meaningful changes. Reid started a new job, and they both found ways to cut back on non-essential spending.
“If it went in the Amazon cart, but we waited a day, could we live without it?” he said.
Another change the couple made was as easy as adding an extra step to online purchases.
“One thing that I did that helped a ton was I removed my card from Apple Pay, and I removed my card from Amazon because we share an Amazon account,” Halli said. “That in and of itself, you know, if you're not paying attention, you don't realize how much all of that adds up.”
That, combined with being a little stricter on bigger-ticket items like travel, and the child care they wanted became a reality.
