Over the next year, you will see billboards, social media, and perhaps even spray-painted artistic messages about how critical early child care is not just important for children’s brains, it’s important for Colorado’s economy.
Growing Our Future, a coalition led by two advocacy groups, launched a campaign this week to raise awareness and lay the groundwork for statewide support and funding for child care at the state level.
“We have a unique opportunity right now to go for something big and bold,” said Melissa Mares, director of early childhood at the Colorado Children’s Campaign.
Together with the Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition, the organization received a national grant to transform child care in the state. Colorado is one of six states to receive the funding. A coalition is launching a public awareness campaign about the benefits of a strong early childhood system, a rarity in the nonprofit world. The campaign – with the tagline “Colorado thrives when child care thrives” – will focus on care for infants through 4-year-olds. Even parents who participate in the state’s universal preschool program are still having to patch together a full day of care.
“Coloradans on a personal level really know that child care is difficult if not impossible to find or afford,” Mares said. She said the campaign will break down the impact on families, providers, women, businesses, and the economy to illustrate that it’s not an issue that people without children can ignore.
In short, having child care allows parents to work. A recent study by the Council for a Strong America shows that the economic impact of lack of just infant and toddler child care in Colorado is $2.7 billion.
“It really is universally impacting all of us, this challenge of not fully funding our child care system,” said Mares.
Colorado has the fifth most expensive child care in the nation.
To give an idea of how out-of-balance the state is when it comes to child care costs – the federal government says child care shouldn’t cost more than 7% of a family’s annual income but for a two-parent household in Colorado, the average cost is 14 percent. Single parents must spend 41% of their income on average for child care.
Colorado also has a critical shortage of early child care workers. The state will even pay for people to get training to be early child care professionals.
An extensive poll of Colorado adults, including non-voters, showed a strong level of support for more public funding for child care – so strong it even surprised the coalition, which commissioned the poll this spring. While the cost of living, homelessness, and the cost of housing ranked as the top problems facing the state, Coloradans saw the lack of child care options as a very serious problem.
Three in four respondents said there’s a need for more funding for child care and early learning. About half see a great need for additional funding.
“There's overwhelming agreement, well over three to one, that expanding early learning and child care programs benefits all Coloradans, not just young children and their parents,” said Dave Metz, president of FM3, a California-based company that conducts public policy-oriented opinion research.
When opposition messages were included, such as the cost of living being too high, the fact that Colorado just passed universal preschool for 4-year-olds or parents – not taxpayers – should be responsible for raising their children, support levels didn’t change.
“What that suggests is that the public's attitudes on these issues are pretty dug in,” said Metz.
Almost two-thirds of respondents somewhat support or strongly support an increase in income tax on the wealthiest Coloradans to expand child care and early learning services. Support between parents and non-parents was comparable.
About a quarter of Coloradans would be classified as swing. Metz said that the swing group is a potential target for outreach and messages explaining the need for support of child care.
Three in five said they would be more likely to support a tax reform proposal if it included funding for child care and early learning.
In the poll, strong supporters tended to be liberal Democratic, in the Denver area and other urban areas of the state, more female than male and not surprisingly mothers with children at home. The populations more opposed were conservative, Republican, white and male over 50. The swing group included lots of younger respondents, BIPOC households, lower-income Coloradans as well as those who are not registered to vote, said Metz.
Republicans were split evenly on whether the state government should provide additional funds or it should be left to parents to find ways to afford child care. When conservative, older, Republican males heard some of the rationales for investing in early childhood, pollsters saw a shift in perspective.
“Frankly, there wasn't anything we tested here that got a backlash or a negative reaction,” he said. “It’s an appealing idea that only becomes more so when the public hears some of these arguments in favor.”
Messages that got people most enthusiastic about increasing funding for quality child care is that research shows that it lays a strong foundation for children’s brain development and that wages for child care workers are low and have remained stagnant for a long time, said Metz.
In 2021, median wages for child care educators ranged from $27,787 in Mesa County to $37,574 in Pueblo County.
The public information campaign will be initially in English and Spanish and will later add more languages such as Arabic, Dari and Pashto.
To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org.
