Parents Struggle to Find Affordable Childcare in West Virginia

[TexasTowelie]

Childcare costs are high no matter where you are in the country. But in West Virginia, it's even worse - according to a 2016 report by the think tank New America and Care.com, parents in the Mountain State shoulder the highest cost burden, spending about 45 percent of the state's median household income on childcare.

"Caring for children has a lot of fixed costs," said Sara Anderson, an associate professor at West Virginia University who studies pre-kindergarten and childcare. "Because our average wages are lower, it's just going to be a higher portion of our income."

Childcare costs are so expensive largely due to the labor required to run a day care facility. Younger children, especially infants, are required to have a lower caregiver-to-child ratio, meaning that they require more caregivers than older children.

Because they're so expensive to maintain, the childcare industry also doesn't fit into the typical supply-and-demand market. The demand is high, but parents - especially young parents who haven't reached their full earning potential yet - can't afford to pay the true costs of enrolling a child in daycare, instead opting to have a relative or neighbor babysit for cheaper prices instead. Daycare employees are among the lowest paid, because they can't charge more than what the parents can afford to pay.

Read more: http://wvpublic.org/post/parents-struggle-find-affordable-childcare-w-va