West Virginia Cares
It’s an all too frequent scenario in West Virginia. Talented working professionals who are significantly contributing to their companies — and the state’s efforts to grow a robust economy — decide to start a family. Eventually, if not immediately, they face a dilemma: Is it cost-prohibitive for them to utilize child care so two parents can continue to work? Is child care even available in the region where they live?
Too often, the answers to those questions lead families to decide that one parent must drop out of the workforce. The decision has a financial impact not only on the families who are now operating on one income instead of two but also on companies that are losing valuable talent in which they’ve invested.
It’s an ongoing, multifaceted and challenging economic issue about which the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce wants to raise more awareness.
“You may have a job, but if most of your paycheck is going toward child care, then many parents ask themselves, ‘Why am I working for such little pay and not spending more time with my kids?’ For many parents the decision becomes pretty easy, and they resign,” said Brian Dayton, vice president of policy and advocacy for the West Virginia Chamber. “That, in turn, leads into a major workforce issue. While West Virginia no longer has the lowest workforce participation rate in the country — Mississippi did last year — we still have, by a large margin, the lowest female workforce participation rate in the country.”
At 49.5% in 2022, West Virginia was the only state in the nation with less than 50% of females working, according to a recent report that the Chamber published to raise awareness about the dire child care situation in West Virginia and what policymakers and members of the business community can do to help.
The report, The Case for Child Care in West Virginia, spells out the impact of the issue on the economy, as well as the operational challenges that West Virginia’s child care facilities are facing. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government has provided financial assistance to child care facilities — but that funding could soon be cut.
“There have been mixed messages about how long the financial assistance will last,” Dayton said. “Some have projected it may end in December of this year.”
To complicate matters, proposed changes to government funding rules may negatively impact the financial stability of child care facilities across the state. As a result, the Chamber has formulated a plan that will help child care providers continue to operate with stability.
“The Legislature is trying to find out how long federal government assistance will continue, and to get a firm number on what the extra costs will be if those funds dry up,” Dayton said. “That is a number the Legislature needs to know so they can build the budget for next year. The fiscal cliff may be as early as the end of December 2024, and West Virginia needs to find a way to help subsidize our child care facilities.”
Child care today “is no small cost to a West Virginia family,” Dayton added.
“The average cost in West Virginia is about $800 per month,” he said. “It’s a little bit less as the child gets older, and a little bit more with younger children. In West Virginia, that could be the same amount as a monthly mortgage, or as much as two car payments. And that cost is for just one child. When families have two or more children, it can very quickly become cost-prohibitive for one parent to go to work.”
A major contributor to having the nation’s lowest rate of females in the workforce is that child care is not only out of reach financially but also, in many parts of the state, unavailable entirely.
“That’s why businesses got involved in this issue,” Dayton explained. “They need additional workers — but job applicants are telling them that unless their company has access to child care, they can’t make it work.”
According to 2023 U.S. Census data, 5% of West Virginia’s population is under 5 years old, totaling approximately 88,000 children. If all required child care, only 45% would find spots available.
“That’s what has really driven this conversation about getting the business community involved,” Dayton said.
One way to address the problem is to incentivize businesses to start their own child care centers, he said, and the West Virginia Chamber is introducing bills to accomplish that.
“We’re looking at a number of angles to address child care,” Dayton said. “There are two bills the Chamber has drafted and handed to the Legislature. One would create a new tax credit for businesses that are providing child care on site, so that if you have a child care center operating on your premises, you can take a tax credit equal to 100% of the operating costs.”
In 2022, the Legislature passed a bill giving a 50% tax credit to any business that starts a child care facility. The Chamber’s other bill would increase that tax credit from 50% to 100%.
The Chamber is also keeping an eye on programs elsewhere. One example is MI Tri-Share, a pilot program in the state of Michigan in which businesses pay one-third of child care costs, parents pay one-third and the state pays one-third.
Additionally, the Chamber is looking at ways to increase pay for child care workers.
“These are not high-paying jobs — $15 an hour is probably at the upper end of the pay scale,” Dayton said. “At that rate, you’re probably losing people to restaurants. Is there something the state can do to help providers retain those workers? It’s not that the child care facilities want to pay their workers $15 an hour; they simply don’t have the finances to pay much more than that.”
The Chamber is encouraging its members to engage their legislators to take this issue seriously.
“Tell your elected representatives they need to address the lack of child care in West Virginia. It has become an urgent workforce issue,” Dayton said. “It’s fine for legislators to hear from me, but it’s especially impactful if they’re hearing from the businesses in their community. That is really critical — that they hear from back home.”