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In New Mexico, all children get free childcare, regardless of the family’s income. Vermont offers nearly the same thing. New York City is rolling out a similar program, and a handful of other cities and states are exploring the idea.
Yet the idea of universal childcare rarely arises in the halls of Sacramento, even though California has some of the highest childcare costs in the country.
“Why is this not a priority in California?” said Patricia Lozano, executive director of Early Edge California, an advocacy group. “The demand is so high. … This could have an enormous positive impact on California’s families and the economy.”
Infant and toddler care in California can cost well over $30,000 a year depending on the region, according to Kidsdata. That’s more than a year at the University of California, or for many families, more than rent or a mortgage payment. Programs are also hard to find: most childcare centers have months-long waiting lists.
Childcare is so expensive that it’s driving some families to leave the state, have fewer children or drop out of the workforce entirely. That’s had broad economic impacts, as K-12 schools see declining enrollment and fewer parents are in the workforce. In the past decade, California schools have lost nearly half a million students, in part due to parents leaving the state because of the high cost of living. Declining birth rates and a drop in immigration have also played a role, according to the state Department of Finance.
Big investments, big costs
In the past few years, California has poured billions into childcare and preschool subsidies for low-income families, but extending those benefits to every family would be complicated, said Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, a Democrat from Winters who chairs the Legislative Women’s Caucus.
The state would have to ensure there are enough childcare workers, who are already in high demand, and that they’re paid adequately. It would also have to link existing services – currently, a hodgepodge of licensed childcare centers, neighborhood babysitters and everything in between – to a broader state infrastructure. The process could take years.
It would also be expensive. Stanford economists estimated it would cost up to $21 billion a year.
But that doesn’t mean the state shouldn’t try, Aguiar-Curry said. There are no current bills pushing for universal childcare, but a handful of recent bills have addressed issues such as parental leave and requirements to receive subsidized childcare. Aguiar-Curry said she’d like the state to make the enrollment process easier for parents and boost quality across the entire system.
“It’s a family issue, a workforce issue, and an economic issue,” she said. “When parents have reliable childcare, they can go to work, stay in the workforce, and provide for their families. We’ve made a lot of progress in California, and I don’t want us to lose sight of that, but I also don’t think we should be satisfied with where we are. We’ve got more work to do.”
Investing in childcare easily pays for itself through increased tax revenue, according to a team of Stanford researchers who examined the issue earlier this year. Universal childcare would allow more parents to work, expanding the family’s budget and boosting lifetime earnings. It also benefits employers who’d have less turnover when new parents stay on the job.
Still, that argument can be hard to quantify, said Chloe Gibbs, a fellow at the Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research who coauthored the study.
“The upfront costs are high and the return is diffuse,” Gibbs said. “But we did find substantial benefits.”
Good for parents, but maybe not kids
Meanwhile, California is chipping away at the gaps in services. The state has more than doubled the number of childcare vouchers for low-income families since 2018, and expanded free preschool eligibility so a family of four earning up to $136,000 a year now qualifies. Transitional kindergarten is also now available to all 4-year-olds.
More recently, the state shifted preschool funding to the same funding stream used by K-12 schools. That essentially means that state-funded preschools are part of the K-12 system, bringing stability to a sector that was previously subject to the ups and downs of the state’s general fund.
In addition, the state added more preschool slots for children whose parents work for school districts, county offices of education and community colleges.
But universal childcare may not be the panacea its proponents are hoping for, said Bruce Fuller, an education professor at UC Berkeley who studies early childhood education. There’s no question it would be a financial boon for parents, but the research is mixed on how much and which children benefit, he said.
Children, especially those from low-income households, benefit from high-quality childcare, but low-quality childcare yields few benefits at great cost, he said. The state would have to improve its standards, including the training protocols for childcare workers, for all children to benefit.
“We know that universal childcare is good economic policy, but does it advance children’s early learning? Not necessarily,” Fuller said.
He also noted that California’s early childhood investments have come so quickly that quality has been uneven. The state should sort out the current hiccups, such as the impact of transitional kindergarten on community preschools, before embarking on a larger expansion.
“Are we growing so quickly we’re losing quality? That’s something we need to consider,” Fuller said.
Fuller favors a more gradual approach, starting with expanding state-funded preschool to all low- and middle-income 3-year-olds. A perfect place for such an expansion could be the K-12 classrooms and schools left vacant by declining enrollment, he said.
‘She loves it here’
That’s the focus of Kidango, a Bay Area nonprofit that runs 54 childcare centers at dozens of school campuses in San Jose, East Palo Alto, Hayward and other communities. The centers serve children from birth through age 5 from some of the lowest-income families in the region – those living below the federal poverty line, which is $33,000 a year for a family of four.
Yeison Velez travels an hour every day from Sunnyvale to bring his 2-year-old daughter to the Kidango childcare center at the former Toyon Elementary School in east San Jose. In the four months since his daughter started at Kidango, Velez has watched her grow from being shy and quiet to being “very social,” he said.
“She loves it here,” Velez said in Spanish.
On a recent sunny morning, about 50 toddlers wiggled, bounced, clambered and daydreamed in the Toyon center’s shaded play area under the supervision of more than a dozen teachers. Some chased bubbles, others rolled hula hoops, some plowed toy trucks through the sand. A few played with blocks. Not a single child was crying, or even fussing.
“We try to build relationships with the children and the families. We want the children to feel safe and welcome,” said Yesenia Rivas-Bejarano, the center director. “We know that’s important to the parents, and we don’t want to let them down. We try to build these deep connections.”
Merliz Parra said she was thrilled when she found out that her 3-year-old son, Carlos Josue, got a spot at the Kidango Toyon Early Learning Center. He had been on the waiting list for months.
“Now my son is able to go to school, engage with other children, gain social skills,” Parra said through a translator. “And I can go to work.”
Parra and her husband both work as delivery drivers, earning just enough to survive in the Bay Area. Subsidized childcare “is very, very important” for the family to make ends meet, she said.
But more important, she said, is the high quality of care for her son.
“He’s happy here,” she said. “That makes a difference.”
