Building a Better Childcare System in New Hampshire

Recent data from the New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium at UNH's Carsey School of Public Policy found that New Hampshire families with two children under five are paying an average of nearly $30,000 per year, or 25% of median family income, for childcare. Jess Carson, a research assistant professor who leads the consortium and is also director of Carsey's Center for Social Policy in Practice, untangles the issues behind the state's childcare crisis - and offers hope.

What's the challenge of New Hampshire childcare in a nutshell?

Most people agree that nurturing our littlest Granite Staters is important, and that to go to work, parents need somebody to be with their kiddos. That's easier said than done; one of the main issues, which feels counter-intuitive, is that families pay too much for childcare, while early educators earn too little, and it creates a supply problem.

So why is childcare so expensive?

It's hard work to care for kiddos and to keep them safe. Most people agree there should be rules around how many children one adult can care for at a time and if you do the math, that's just three or four families paying for one teacher.

When you add in the costs of operating a business - classroom supplies, a director, maybe bookkeeping software, a plow guy for the parking lot - those add up fast. And unfortunately, there is no alternative public revenue stream on which childcare businesses can draw. They charge families what they can to keep the doors open. That price is often less than what it actually costs to do business; it's what they think their families will be able to pay.

Why can't we recruit more teachers and create more childcare options for families?

Childcare workers in New Hampshire earn around $35,000 on average, whereas a kindergarten teacher makes around $60,000, and they have summers off. At that pay, it is really hard to sustain a workforce.

Are regulatory requirements constricting the ability to provide affordable childcare?

There are certainly administrative burdens to operating this kind of business, but we don't have much evidence that removing regulations improves childcare supply. Removing regulations from the sector is not the most robust tool in our toolkit for improving childcare supply.

How have these financial pressures altered New Hampshire's childcare landscape?

We've seen some significant shuttering of our childcare providers over time, particularly our smaller, home-based providers. In general, larger providers - for example, those who are connected to a bigger system like the Boys and Girls Club, and have a little bit more infrastructure behind them - have been more resilient.

So what we're seeing now is the same-ish number of slots, but in fewer locations. In a state like New Hampshire that has some very rural characteristics and lacks robust public transportation, it can be hard for working families whose only option for childcare might be a long commute away. A good system needs a mix of options, and we're seeing those choices shrink.

Is this a New Hampshire problem?

It's not a uniquely New Hampshire problem, but there are some distinctly New Hampshire elements. For instance, we don't have state-funded preschool; in most states, that could help to take the supply pressure off community-based organizations.

We are also a limited government state, which sometimes means we don't have a robust data infrastructure. The state hasn't historically had a bunch of tools in our toolbox to assess and track how the childcare crisis is unfolding or how different policy efforts are working.

How is the NH Early Care and Education Research Consortium helping?

I'm a data nerd. I really believe in the power of data and research to help us understand what we need as a state, how we can tackle those needs, and assess whether our efforts are working. We have recently begun providing data capacity support to our colleagues at the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services. Hopefully the consortium can serve the role of getting the data to folks who need it so then they can do their policy work out in the world. We're here to help track and measure what works and what the next steps might need to look like to build a true system.

Where do you see hope?

People are talking about childcare in spaces that maybe wouldn't have happened years ago. Employers, for example, are starting to realize that they do have a stake in early care and education, because they need employees and working parents need childcare. They're starting to recognize childcare as a shared good.

There are also so many smart people working on this hard challenge. I think we all share a belief that the early childhood system in New Hampshire has so much potential to be transformed in ways that support of all families and continue to make New Hampshire a really great place to live and to work.