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According to the Kentucky State Legislature, effective in late October, the state’s Child Care Assistance Program will waive income eligibility requirements for families seeking support “if an applicant or responsible adult …has verified employment in a regulated (a) Licensed child-care center; or (b) Certified family child-care home."

The intent is to ease burdens both on child care workers with children needing care, and for child care programs offering discounts to employees who enroll their own children. This in turn should stabilize the availability and cost of care, allowing parents to return to the workforce in other sectors.  

Referencing 20 years of workforce data, Kentucky Chamber Center for Policy and Research Executive Director Charles Aull testified in favor of the legislation, noting child care is among the most pressing workforce issues in Kentucky and the nation and defining child care as a root cause of Kentucky’s workforce crisis. Aull cited polling data noting 68% of those leaving the workforce said child care affected their ability to stay in the workforce, 68% said child care affected their ability to work more hours, and 20% quit their job to stay at home with a child. Aull stated that Kentucky’s child care crisis has a $2.12 to $3.23 billion cumulative economic impact in Kentucky.

In The Art of Leadership: Promoting Early Childhood Services, Anne Mitchell cites workforce productivity as one of “four good reasons why ECE is not just important, but essential.” The other three are the ‘moral argument,’ the ‘brain research argument,’ and the ‘return on investment argument.’ Mitchell notes, “Numerous economic impact studies have shown that early childhood education is a significant industry in every state, comparable to those that get a lot more economic development attention and public investment, such as tourism and hospitals.”

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