Amid soaring child care costs and staff shortages, investing in child care is crucial for Rhode Island’s future
March 31, 2025
This General Assembly session, we need to expand and strengthen policies and investments we know are working, write members of the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island
Most Americans these days are feeling financial stressors in our economy. Whether it’s the increased price of eggs, rent, or gas, the cost of living has steadily increased while household incomes have not kept up.
These economic challenges are especially difficult for parents with young children, and even more so for single mothers. It’s no secret that raising children is expensive, but the cost of child care in Rhode Island, especially for infants and toddlers, is more than $15,000 per year according to a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute.
These high costs leave many families with the difficult decision of choosing between quality care for their children and financial stability. This burden typically falls hardest on women, who are more likely to reduce hours worked or leave the workforce to care for infants and young children. It’s a loss that hurts mothers’ careers, hurts employers and hurts our economy.
Access to affordable child care empowers women to remain in the workforce without having to worry about the quality of their children’s care. When mothers are no longer forced to cut their work hours because they’re unable to afford child care – or worse, remove themselves from the workforce entirely – women can sustain long-term careers that lead to better pay.
At the same time that Rhode Island families are struggling with the cost of child care, our child care providers are facing a staffing crisis. Rhode Island child care educators, who are overwhelmingly women, and often women of color, make about $15 per hour on average. This has led many to leave the field for higher-paying jobs in retail and other sectors. And when child care educators leave, that often leads to classrooms being closed because programs are unable to maintain state-mandated child-to-teacher ratios. And when classrooms close, it makes waiting lists for child care programs even longer.
Fortunately, Governor Dan McKee and the General Assembly have recognized the challenges facing our state’s child care sector and have made strategic investments in recent years to address access, affordability, and staffing issues. This General Assembly session, we need to expand and strengthen policies and investments we know are working. That’s why the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island is supporting three important pieces of legislation to strengthen our state’s child care infrastructure:
Rhode Island must trust moms so they can access the state Child Care Assistance Program. Rhode Island is one of the few states that requires mothers to pursue child support enforcement as a condition of accessing the Child Care Assistance Program. Participation in child support enforcement is not required to qualify for any other early care and education programs. Most states never had this requirement in place, and almost all of those that did have removed it. It’s time to end this burdensome requirement in Rhode Island (H-5197 / S-0062).
Rhode Island must make its successful Child Care for Child Care Educators program permanent (H-5196 / S-0100). This program began in August 2023 and covers the cost of child care for qualifying staff who work in child care programs. Nearly half of the licensed child care and early learning centers in the state have at least one staff person participating. This is a smart and successful program that helps to support our critical workforce of child care educators.
The General Assembly needs to restore $1.1 million in funding for infant/toddler child care that was left out of the proposed FY 2026 state budget (H-6019 / S-0667). This funding has been successfully used to supplement wages for the lowest paid but best-qualified infant/toddler child care educators, so they don’t leave the field.
The child care crisis we face in Rhode Island and across the country disproportionately impacts women. But access to quality, affordable child care is an issue for employers and the functioning of our overall economy as well. That’s why these investments are so critical and need to be sustained.
Linda Shaw and Nicholas Ventola are members of the child-care subcommittee of the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island’s policy and advocacy committee.
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