Allegheny County will allot $500,000 in additional funding to make child care more affordable for lower-income families, County Executive Sara Innamorato announced Wednesday.
“This is an urgent crisis. It is not just an issue for young families. It's an economic issue for our whole county,” Innamorato said. “If working families can't work, if they're staying on the sidelines and out of the workforce, we will continue to have one of the slowest post-pandemic economic recoveries. We have to find creative solutions and work together to help families thrive.”
The money will be directed toward the Allegheny County Child Care Matters pilot program, which was launched in 2022. It offers county-level subsidies to help pay for child care to families who earn more than the state’s subsidized child care income limits, but less than 300% of the federal poverty income guidelines. Parents must meet state requirements for work and/or school hours to qualify.
In its first year and a half, the Child Care Matters pilot helped 357 families attend local early learning programs, said Rochelle Salih, assistant director for family services for the local Early Learning Resource Center. The center manages the program.
“We have so many families that are just over the income guidelines … and those families are struggling,” Salih said. “They're having a hard time continuing to work and take care of their families. … For them not to be able to be professionals and continue to do their job would be a detriment to the rest of our community.”
Innamorato said the pilot program has a waitlist of 28 families, and the additional funds announced Wednesday will get all of those kids into daycare, along with more kids whose families qualify. (Officials weren’t able to estimate how many more families will receive subsidies, as the cost of care per child varies widely based on age and the level of care required.)
The additional funding is a one-time boost for the program, and it comes from federal American Rescue Plan dollars that had been allocated to other projects which came in under budget. The ARP is structured as a “use it or lose it model,” Innamorato said, and money left unallocated by the end of this year would be forfeited.
“We're not letting any of those federal dollars go back to the federal government,” Innamorato said.
Wednesday’s announcement was the first installment on a priority that Innamorato often discussed on the campaign trail last year. At a candidate forum during the primary, for example, she pledged to fully fund the Department of Children Initiatives, which started the county pilot program. And at her inauguration, she promised that the county would provide options “so parents and caregivers can afford high quality child care, and child care professionals can find good paying jobs.”
But the need for childcare support extends far beyond the county’s wait list. Trying Together, a local organization that supports high-quality care and education for young children, reports that 14,020 children in Allegheny County are currently income eligible for the state program, but only 4,500 children ages 0 to 5 are currently being served because there aren't enough state and federal funds to cover the need.
Wednesday’s announcement is meant to help chip away at that number. While the cash infusion is a one-time boost, Innamorato pledged to work with officials at other levels of government to provide more state and federal funding to address the need.
In the meantime, “This investment is so meaningful to young families and the programs that serve them, because it provides our youngest residents with the opportunities to learn and grow,” said Rebecca Mercatoris, director of the county’s Department of Children Initiatives.
Cara Ciminillo, the executive director for Trying Together, said the need for childcare was a national crisis.
Most families are required to pay out of pocket for child care, which some report costs as much as or more than their monthly rent or mortgage payments. The U.S. Department of Labor’s National Database of Childcare Prices reports that care for a single child in Allegheny County can cost an estimated $9,181 a year for school-age home-based care to an estimated $13,772 for infant center-based care. That’s between 9.5% and 14.3% of a median family’s income for each child.
Another challenge stems from workforce shortages. There are more than 650 licensed child care programs in Allegheny County, but many of them have open positions they’re unable to fill with staffers that have an understanding of child development.
“Oftentimes we don't elevate the importance of their work to those child care workers, those child care teachers, preschool, infant, toddler teachers. Their work is so vitally important,” Ciminillo said.
The extra funding announced Wednesday could benefit more than just the families receiving it, she said.
“We know that it's really important that we have a caregiving infrastructure because it's what enables a child to thrive, a family to thrive, and broadly, our community and our economy to thrive. So all of those pieces are at stake when we're not investing in child care.”
