Chloe - should I think of the most likely outcome here as going back to near-ish the 2019 number of slots? That’s what it seemed like, but I wasn’t sure if that was an oversimplification
Yes, I think that's approximately correct -- without the ARP funds at play, there are the countervailing forces of (1) pretty sizable increases in Federal funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) child care subsidies program over the last couple years as well as state investment to support and sustain expansion of slots--separate from COVID relief dollars--and (2) slower recovery of employment in child care which is tightly linked to capacity, which now will likely stall.
Notably, our best estimates of supply of and demand for child care come from 2019 survey data, which is where we see that 76% of families with young children who searched for care experienced difficulty finding care that met their needs, and 73% of child care centers reported excess demand for their available slots.
Chloe - should I think of the most likely outcome here as going back to near-ish the 2019 number of slots? That’s what it seemed like, but I wasn’t sure if that was an oversimplification
Yes, I think that's approximately correct -- without the ARP funds at play, there are the countervailing forces of (1) pretty sizable increases in Federal funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) child care subsidies program over the last couple years as well as state investment to support and sustain expansion of slots--separate from COVID relief dollars--and (2) slower recovery of employment in child care which is tightly linked to capacity, which now will likely stall.
Notably, our best estimates of supply of and demand for child care come from 2019 survey data, which is where we see that 76% of families with young children who searched for care experienced difficulty finding care that met their needs, and 73% of child care centers reported excess demand for their available slots.
Super helpful thank you!