- Families in Utah struggle with rising costs and lack of affordable child care.
- Most families in Utah have to have both parents working to afford raising kids.
- There are not enough child care providers in Utah to fill the need of working parents.
Rhiannon McDaniel and her husband are raising their two children in a home they bought a few years ago in Holladay, Utah.
The 30-year-old mother acknowledged that her family has plenty of privilege and blessings in their lives while sharing the struggles she and her husband face while raising their family.
McDaniel has a master’s degree in social work and worked in the social work forensic research space, while her husband works as a software engineering manager. A couple of years ago, McDaniel left her job to stay at home with her two kids, Atticus, 7, and Brita, 4, because it became too hard to afford full-time child care for the two kids.
She described the decision to stay at home with her kids as “precarious.” The questions they faced were whether they could afford to have her work and pay for child care or if they could afford to have her not work and stay home with the kids.
McDaniel said she was trying to juggle her emotional health with trying to raise children as everything increases in cost.
“I’d say it feels precarious, like everything just feels kind of like it could all collapse, and you just don’t know if it will,” McDaniel added.
She continued: “It’s like, we don’t have enough money to actually pay for the amount of child care that we need, grocery prices are rising and it just kind of, it just all feels very precarious all the time.”
McDaniel and her family aren’t the only ones in Utah who feel the pressure of trying to raise a family in a world that is becoming increasingly more expensive. Emily Bell McCormick, president and founder of the Policy Project, shared that as her organization met with and surveyed people around Utah, “it just became abundantly clear that Utah families are struggling, and especially young families, when expenses are so high.”
McCormick said things aren’t getting better, child care is becoming less accessible and basic necessities are becoming more expensive.
“It’s not sustainable,” McCormick said. “It’s not looking good for Utah families.”
The Policy Project is working with a number of lawmakers in the Legislature to see what can be done to help these young families trying to raise their kids in Utah.
Young couples are raising their families in a n increasingly expensive world
Rep. Jason Thompson, R-River Heights, said when he talks to his constituents, their main concerns are affordability, the overall economy, the cost of living and child care. Aas he does work on different policies, he asks himself: “How is this going to impact families?”
“Because I believe that families are the gatekeeper for society, and are the most important institution in society,” the representative said.
Numbers from the Policy Project show that around 76% of two-parents families in Utah need to have both adults working in order to pay for basic expenses.
“We’re not talking about like, this is so I can live in a mansion and have five cars. You know, this is just, like, food, those kinds of things,” McCormick said.
One concern lawmakers have is that as these kids who were raised in Utah grow up, they can’t afford a life here, so they have to move away.
“We are exporting our children and grandchildren to other states where they believe they have a better chance to build a life. For a state built on strong families and generational roots, that should concern all of us,” Thompson said in an interview with the Deseret News.
Sandi Snowden, a volunteer with the Policy Project, said she has sees her five adult children face affordability issues while raising their young families. Her kids often talk about moving out of Utah to somewhere less expensive.
As a real estate agent, she says she often works with young couples who moved out of Utah for school and want to move back but can’t afford it.
“Their families are sad, they’re sad, we’re losing these great kids that want to come back to Utah, but just don’t see how they can,” Snowden said.
McCormick said the state hasn’t had to legislate around supporting families before, but as the cost of living increases, “we have to be so much more mindful about how to make Utah a supportive environment for families.”
She added that there has to be a mindset change to prioritize the importance of families and children.
“I think what it’s going to take for us to do better for families is really recognizing that the children are infrastructure and placing value on them in very, very concrete ways,” McCormick said.
Utah’s child care options are expensive, and there’s not enough of them
During a press conference with the Policy Project last month, a group of lawmakers involved in different child care bills shared that 77% of Utahns live in child care deserts. These are places where there aren’t enough licensed child care providers to meet the needs of the families there. Rural counties such as Daggett, Piute, Wayne and Rich don’t have any licensed child care providers.
Thompson shared that licensed child care providers fill only 14% of the need in Utah.
Some people are able to have family members or neighbors take care of their children while they work, but that isn’t a viable option for everyone.
The lack of child care isn’t just an issue for parents; it also hurts the state as a whole. Thompson shared that Utah loses an estimated $1.36 billion a year in wages and productivity because parents can’t find reliable care. The state loses roughly $258 million annually in tax revenue because of this as well.
“Let me be clear, this is not a grow-the-economy effort. This is a preserve-the-family effort. When child care centers close, families scramble, businesses lose workers, and growth slows,” Thompson said.
Numbers from the policy project show that infant care averages more than $11,000 a year and child care for two young children can cost over $24,000 annually.
Child care is considered unaffordable in all of Utah’s 29 counties and infant care can cost more than in-state college tuition, Thompson shared.
McDaniel said it’s not just the cost of child care that makes it difficult, but also the long waitlists to get kids a spot in the facilities. She added that she doesn’t think the solution is to pay child care providers less, because they need to be able to support themselves and they are doing essential and underappreciated work.
Melea Rogers, who owns a child care facility in Ogden, said that the cost of child care is high for parents but that also it is expensive for child care providers to run their facilities.
“I think another hard part is that we are underrated. You know, we are taking care of people’s most prized possessions, but at every turn, we’re smacked in the face,” she added.
Lawmakers have emphasized that in today’s economy child care is a necessity for so many Utahns in both the lower and middle class.
“Child care isn’t a luxury. It isn’t a perk. It’s infrastructure, just like roads, utilities, and schools. It makes work possible. It strengthens families. It supports economic growth,” Thompson said.
The Utah Legislature is taking a holistic approach to helping child care issues
The Policy Project is working with lawmakers on five pieces of legislation that aim to help with family affordability and child care issues in a holistic way.
“There is no silver bullet, you know, there isn’t one bill that’s going to solve for Utah being able to support its families entirely, right there. You can’t do that in one bill,” McCormick shared.
Lawmakers aim to make a number of different changes that won’t solve the whole issue but will make things easier for families.
HB190, sponsored by Thompson, would set up a child care tax credit that mirrors the current federal model. This would provide a tax credit to employers who provide or help pay for child care for their employees.
“This is not government child care. What we’re doing is we’re bringing communities and the private sector together to find a long term, realistic solution for our child care challenges,” he said.
On a federal level small businesses qualify for a 50% tax credit and large businesses would get 40%. HB190 would build on that adding 30% on the state level for small businesses and 10% for large business.
Child Tax Credit Amendments, or HB290, would expand the income eligibility for the state’s Child Tax Credit. This would allow the credit to help a larger number of Utahns.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Tracy Miller, R-South Jordan, would raise the threshold for who qualifies for the child tax credit.
For those married, but filing separately, there is a maximum of $30,500 a year, for single, or head of household the maximum is $49,000 and for joint filing status the maximum would be $61,000.
Sponsored by Rep. Ariel Defay, R-Kaysville, HB329 would expand paid maternity leave for state employees from six weeks to 12 weeks, as previously reported by the Deseret News.
The bill would also strengthen protections for pumping breast milk in public and would launch a pilot program allowing local education agencies to provide up to 12 weeks of paid maternity leave for teachers.
SB214, from Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City, would increase the number of child care providers in the state by incentivizing the start of more home-based child care providers.
The bill would provide grants of up to $5,000 for those starting home-based child care businesses to help cover expenses related to that business. The grants would come from a pool of $2.3 million, enough to start 1,000 home-based child care businesses.
It would also implement new background check requirements for child care providers and other people involved with the facilities.
There are a number of other bills in the Legislature that deal with family affordability or child care.
This session, Sen. Stephanie Pitcher, D-Millcreek, has introduced a bill that would allow more state employees to bring their infants to work with them. SB258 would expand a pilot program that Pitcher started in 2020 when she was in the House.
The original pilot program applied just to employees of the Utah Department of Health and Human Services. This new bill would expand the infant at work program to all state offices under the executive branch.
Escamilla also has another child care bill, SB248, that would provide child care for state employees and would provide a way for a space in a Utah Tax Commission building to be converted into a child care facility. The senator has run a similar bill in the past, but says they are in a better place with this bill because there is an actual location.
“This is a very complex issue, so I like that we’re having multiple solutions at the same time,” Escamilla said during a Senate media availability earlier this month. “I’m excited that we’re all working together and looking forward to those solutions. I think it’s gonna make a big difference. We are opening places for people to get access.”