Michigan must do better to prioritize child care

A version of this column originally appeared in Crain’s Detroit Business.

Michigan has been grappling with a child care crisis for years, and we must contend with it for the sake of our state’s children, families, providers, workforce and economy.

Many point to the pandemic as the driving factor behind the crisis, but the truth is that child care has been underfunded for decades, and despite some forward movement by the state in recent years, Michigan has a long way to go.

The state’s PreK for All program, for example, is a laudable goal, but it leaves out children under 4, who also need care and educational support. More meaningful investments must be made in children from birth to 3 years old because these are key years for brain development and more families, especially those with low and moderate incomes, would be able to access care if child care scholarships were more readily accessible.

This is also the age group that has the largest return on investment, but they were largely left out of the state budget over the past several years.

A recent report from the Center for Early Learning and Funding Equity illuminates just how much early learning has been shortchanged in Michigan: for every dollar the state spends on K-12, just 24 cents is spent on children 3 and older who are in pre-K and a mere 9 cents is spent on children ages 0 to 3.

This affirms the Michigan League for Public Policy’s own findings in a special brief on child care released with our 2024 Kids Count in Michigan data, which similarly showed that state funding disproportionately goes to school-aged children over younger children, especially children younger than pre-K.

Meanwhile, Michigan is losing billions in economic activity each year as guardians struggle to stay in the workforce as a direct result of insufficient and unaffordable child care. And the child care sector continues to suffer under an outdated and substandard model in which mostly women, especially women of color, are not being compensated fairly for the key role they play in caring for and educating our state’s youngest children. In fact, the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment found that the poverty rate for early childhood workers is four times higher than elementary and middle school teachers at 12.3% as of 2022.

Fully solving Michigan’s child care crisis will not be easy, but some key state budget priorities will make a meaningful difference.

Improving Michigan’s child care scholarship program by increasing rates for providers is a great example. There is a significant gap right now between current state support and the true cost of care, and steps must be taken to increase rates, pay providers prospectively and move toward a true cost of care model. Eight states and the District of Columbia have either already implemented or are currently transitioning to cost estimation modeling, which would more accurately reflect the needs of children in child care settings as well as ensure they are cared for by properly paid caretakers with benefits.

And the child care scholarship program’s eligibility should be expanded to include guardians looking for work. While child care is an essential support for those already in the workforce, Michiganders who are looking for and interviewing for jobs also need child care.

Presumptive eligibility for guardians going through the application process for a scholarship would also be hugely beneficial to prevent payment gaps once a new job is secured. At the end of 2024, just 4.7% of all Michigan children 0 to 5 were receiving a child care scholarship. While this is a slight increase over previous years, the right policy solutions and investments could help to significantly grow the share of children supported by these scholarships in the years to come.

Other key solutions for Michigan’s child care crisis include increasing access to care for underserved children, including infants, toddlers and children with disabilities, through grants or provider contracts as well as reinstating and increasing support for wraparound services in the early childhood system, similar to the former Great Start Collaboratives.

Improving compensation for the child care workforce is also vital. Early childhood workers are highly skilled and often have advanced education or credentials, and yet they earn incredibly low wages for the essential work they perform. Child care workers earn less than $15 an hour in Michigan on average, which is not a living wage.

Michigan does not have to recreate the wheel — many states have adopted successful compensation strategies we can learn from.

Child care is a public good, and accessible, affordable child care should not be a luxury. If we want our state’s children to grow up strong and our state’s workforce to meet its full potential, we have to prioritize working families and the providers who serve as the backbone for early childhood care and learning in Michigan.