The Atlanta Journal-Constitution asked educators, policymakers and advocates to share what they deem the most important priorities for the upcoming 2025 General Assembly. Their answers are included in a collection of guest columns. This is the first of these columns.
The state of Georgia is sitting on a historic cash surplus, amounting now to about $11 billion, along with a $5.5 billion rainy day fund. At the same time, our state government is underfunding Georgia’s struggling child care industry, which is essential to the healthy function of families and our economy. Directing just a fraction of Georgia’s surplus billions toward child care and early education would have lasting, positive reverberations through the futures of children, families and our society.
Georgia’s child care landscape has long been in crisis. Even before COVID-19, wages for some of our state’s child care providers and early educators were low enough to qualify as poverty-level. During the pandemic, aid provided by the federal American Rescue Plan kept many child care programs afloat. Since those funds lapsed a little over a year ago, conditions for this industry are worse than ever. According to research by Quality Care for Children, 15% of Georgia’s child care programs are at risk for closure.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
The families who rely upon high-quality child care to maintain their employment are also struggling. In a poll of parents of young children conducted by the Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students, eight in 10 respondents reported difficulty affording a basic need such as food, housing or child care. Forty-four percent indicated child care problems had compelled them or their partners to turn down a job and 36% said they’d had to leave the workforce entirely due to the challenges.
Both providers and families need child care help — a thoughtful investment in early childhood care and education. Without it, we’ll continue down a path illuminated by research conducted by GEEARS and the Metro Atlanta Chamber that found child care challenges lead to an annual economic activity loss of $1.75 billion and an additional loss of $105 million in tax revenue.
And yet, in the last legislative session, Georgia’s government budgeted only $9.3 million additional dollars for Childcare and Parent Services, the subsidy program for families who satisfy our state’s stringent work and income eligibility requirements. (Georgia’s income eligibility is the lowest in the United States.) This inadequate amount means that only 15% of qualifying families receive the subsidies that allow parents to access care for their children, get to their jobs, support their families and contribute to the economy.
Georgia’s recent allocation of funds for child care pales in comparison to many other states, even though the majority of Georgia voters support providing state funding to help working families afford child care. In the last two years, Alabama has invested $30 million in its child care system. Florida: $69 million. Louisiana: $51 million. Maryland and Minnesota’s contributions are much larger, at $218 million and $750 million, respectively.
Like these states, Georgia should increase CAPS funding to boost the number of children who can access child care. This measure would improve families’ ability to maintain employment and/or seek higher education, which in turn could help elevate their income — and tax bracket. The alleviation of child care-based stress can also improve parents’ mental health and help prevent child neglect and abuse.
We must also support early educators by raising their untenable salaries and providing other retention-boosting incentives, such as free professional development opportunities. These measures would both stabilize the shaky field and raise educational quality for children, providing them with the academic foundation and social-emotional benefits that lead to smoother transitions to K-12 school and achievement of “reading to learn” by third grade, a crucial literacy milestone.
Luckily, a bipartisan septet of legislators has been delving into our state’s challenging child care landscape this fall. Established during the 2024 legislative session, the Georgia Senate Study Committee on Access to Affordable Child Care includes several parent legislators who know firsthand what it’s like to juggle work and the child care needs of young children. They’ve been hearing from different stakeholders, including GEEARS, on the impact of child care challenges and potential solutions. In the next couple weeks, the committee will release recommendations for the Legislature’s consideration come January.
With Georgia’s $11 billion surplus, we have an opportunity to strategically invest funds in child care, addressing both an urgent, current need and the futures of our youngest children, whose brain growth and development are at their most rapid and critical during these first years of life. The return on that investment will be profound, both societally and economically.
In other words, an investment in our youngest Georgians and their families will benefit not just those families and not just their child care providers, but all of us. We urge Gov. Brian Kemp and the members of Georgia’s General Assembly to capitalize on the momentum of the Study Committee — they should expand their vision for our state’s surplus and act now to make child care a priority.
Mindy Binderman is the executive director of GEEARS, the Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students.
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