This week, the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance® partnered with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation to educate stakeholders about the importance of advancing child care policy.
Matt Panik, vice president of government affairs at the CLT Alliance, participated in a panel discussion as part of the Early Childhood and Business Advisory Council meeting. The CLT Alliance hosted the meeting which was organized and run by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation and the Bipartisan Policy Center.
In addition to setting the stage with an overview of the business climates of North Carolina and the Charlotte Region, Panik also covered challenges facing employers and employees in the child care space.
With 113 people moving to the Charlotte Region every day, infrastructure is needed to keep up with the increasing population. This means not only roads, bridges, sidewalks, water and sewer, parks, and greenspace, but also hospitals, first responder capacity, and schools. Business and community leaders must also add child care to that list.
With unemployment rates at 3.3% in North Carolina and 3.1% in South Carolina, employers continue to face challenges in meeting their workforce needs.
“Thousands of people in North and South Carolina are impacted by the lack of access to child care,” Panik said. “These impacts include lower labor force participation and lost earnings for workers and greater hiring costs for employers,” he continued.
The CLT Alliance recognizes the momentum present in the Carolinas from a job growth and in-migration perspective. However, ensuring the workforce has access to affordable child care options is a key component of ensuring continued growth.
Child care funding is a top priority to watch in the North Carolina budget. Earlier this legislative session the CLT Alliance led a coalition of chambers in advocating for extension of the Child Care Stabilization Grants to support compensation for the child care workforce. Ensuring child care centers are adequately staffed is a key part of securing child care access for the broader workforce. These letters were sent to the appropriations chairs of the House and Senate.
The advisory council meeting gathered advocates from other states to share best practices and understand shared challenges across the country.
Janet Singerman, president and CEO of Child Care Resources Inc. in Charlotte, shared average costs for infant care, public four-year universities, and mortgages in North Carolina and Mecklenburg County. The annual cost of infant care is much greater than college tuition and relatively close to an average mortgage payment.
While child care is expensive, those in the child care workforce are still not making competitive wages compared to other industries. This imbalance is causing staffing and access to care issues.
Ariel Ford, director of the Division of Child Development and Early Education for the Department of Health and Human Services, spoke about increases to subsidized child care, grant accessibility and expansion, and compensation grant extensions as potential solutions.
Jesse Stoneman and Liat Krawczyk, representing the U.S. Department of Commerce, participated in a discussion about CHIPS for America, a team supporting implementation of all aspects of the CHIPS incentives program. They explored the economic consequences of inadequate child care and outlined a path to achieve the economic objectives of the CHIPS and Science Act through mandatory child care plans for certain CHIPS applicants.
The CHIPS and Science Act was signed into law by President Joe Biden one year ago.
