Child care is a daily puzzle Nevadans must put together to participate in the workforce • Nevada Current

The true struggles of child care are only known by those with children. That is, until they affect the ability of a person to do their job or commit to employers, only then is child care seen as a larger societal issue. Without child care options, Nevada’s economic and workforce activity would grind to a stop.

On July 23rd, the Vegas Chamber Foundation hosted a child care Symposium attended by members of the community, employers, parents, and advocates with a vested interest in addressing the Silver State’s child care crisis. Policymakers and government leaders spoke of a “child care desert” in our state – a dire landscape of imbalance between the need for quality child care and the supply of such facilities, poor compensation for caregivers, and the consequences these conditions have for employers, families, and children. 

As parents of young children ourselves, we, like so many Nevadans, know that child care is not just a hot-button policy priority for the 2025 Nevada Legislature. It is a daily puzzle that parents must piece together to continue participating in the workforce. 

To the families relying on center-based child care in order to continue working — we see you. 

To the single parents piecing together schedules with babysitters to care for their children — we see you. 

To the Nevadans fortunate enough to have the multigenerational assistance of grandparents and extended family to watch their children while they work — we see you. 

To the families anxiously waiting for their child’s name to move to the top of the waiting list at their preferred child care facility — we see you. 

To the young parents who are waiting to return to college until their children are school-bound and some of their child care expenses are alleviated — we see you. 

Indeed, it is the nuances in each of our individual child care stories that makes solving this policy problem so challenging. 

The cost of child care is one of the largest burdens for Nevada families with young children. According to a recent report from The Lincy Institute and Brookings Mountain West, the average starting rate for child care in Nevada is $18.31 per hour. While Assembly Bill 456 (2019) increased the minimum wage in increments of 75 cents annually over a five-year period, the final increase on July 1, 2024 brought Nevada’s minimum wage to $12 per hour. With a $6.31 per hour difference between minimum wage and the average hourly cost of child care, it is obvious why some parents make the difficult to decision to drop out of the workforce altogether to care for their children. 

Access to child care facilities is another challenge that extends beyond simply finding a facility that is near one’s home or place of employment. Access is also determined by the type of care provided, the qualifications of the child care providers, and the availability of financial assistance, if any. Assistance in the form of subsidies and discounted rates for certain employees is limited. At the symposium, Shanell Townsend, Manager of Early Education at United Way, detailed inequities in access and the many obstacles brought about by limited resources known to plague the East portion of the Las Vegas Valley, including the absence of critical infrastructure and child care facilities.

While dedicating funds to build child care centers can alleviate some access challenges, new child care facilities must be filled with trained child care workers, a job sector in short supply in our region. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Las Vegas metro employs just 52% of its expected share of child care workers. 

Further, the determining factor for many families, in addition to excessive costs, is whether child care facilities are providing quality care. A 2023 report prepared by the Nevada Office of Workforce Innovation and released by the Governor’s Workforce Development Board’s notes that 74% of Nevada children ages 0-5 do not have access to licensed child care. The licensing requirements and regulatory barriers imposed on child care providers pose additional challenges. Individuals who pursue this critical line of work must incur substantial costs before they qualify for an entry-level child care job. Reducing these costs by reforming licensing requirements is a necessary policy intervention to grow the number of child care providers in Nevada.

At the symposium, County Commissioner Marilyn Kirkpatrick discussed regulatory changes to promote onsite child care facilities at apartment complexes and in communities managed by homeowner associations. State senator Marilyn Dondero Loop noted a bill draft she plans to introduce in the 2025 session of the Nevada Legislature, proposing to create a taskforce within the Nevada Department of Education to focus attention on child care and early childhood education. 

As we focus our attention on high-level convenings to examine the child care policy landscape in our state, we must also pursue immediate policy interventions to support our current child care professionals, lest these Nevadans find themselves needing to exit the workforce to care for their own children. Another study from The Lincy Institute and Brookings Mountain West shows that child care professionals must dedicate an overwhelming percentage of their income to pay for their own child care needs. In Nevada, center-based child care for two children costs 88.7% of the average annual income of a child care worker ($27,620). 

Adopting policies that have proven successful in other states can ensure that these vital workers remain in the child care workforce at a time when Nevada already has nearly 70,000 vacancies. In 2022, a Kentucky program expanded eligibility requirements of the Bluegrass State’s child care subsidy to include staff working at least 20 hours a week in a licensed early child care education facility. In its first year, 3,200 Kentucky parents working in child care participated and 5,600 children benefited from the program. Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Nebraska, and Rhode Island quickly followed suit. In 2025, Nevada lawmakers should follow these states’ examples and implement a similar program. 

The consequences of the high costs, low accessibility, and low quality of child care in Nevada cannot be understated. The lost productivity for employers and the lack of healthcare and other benefits for parents forced to drop out of the workforce to provide at-home care to their young children hurts Nevada businesses and families. Missed opportunities for further education of working parents because their available income is dedicated to child care costs, and the damaging effects on children placed in unregulated or substandard child care all must be weighed against the cost of investing in our child care infrastructure and workforce. Instead of perpetuating a system that fails to serve the state’s needs, the 2025 legislative session provides the opportunity for lawmakers to take bold action by making the investments and regulatory changes to support Nevada’s families, children, and employers.