Child Care & Vermont’s Prosperity
Quality child care is economic development.
Vermont’s economic prosperity relies on its most important asset: Vermonters. To create a thriving economy
today and for the future, employers must be able to depend on a stable and focused workforce.
Quality child care is important to the bottom line.
Working families rely on the child care system in order to arrive at work ready to be productive. In Vermont,
71% of children under the age of 6 have all of their parents in the labor force and approximately 21,670 kids
under the age of 5 are likely to need some form of child care.1 When working parents can rely on high-quality, affordable child care, their productivity increases, absenteeism is reduced and turnover is minimized.
When child care is unstable for their employees, businesses lose out.
• Research shows that over a six-month period:
► 45 percent of parents are absent from work at least once due
to child care issues, missing an average of 4.3 days.2
► 65 percent of parents’ work schedules are affected by child
care challenges an average of 7.5 times.3
• These child care challenges cost U.S. employers an estimated $3
billion annually.4
• The cost and inaccessibility of early care and learning programs
often forces tough choices for employees, who may have to choose
to stay at home rather than putting their kids in child care—creating
an unstable workforce for employers.
• Employee retention is a key driver of customer retention. Studies
show an inverse correlation between employee turnover and sales:
the greater the turnover, the weaker the sales.
Craig Alexander, Senior VP &
Chief Economist of TD Bank,
on child care:
“It is very much an economic
topic. If you are concerned with
skills development, productivity and innovation, you should
really care about this subject.”
Attracting New Jobs and Vermont Employees
One of Vermont’s most critical economic challenges is to attract new skilled workers for the state's businesses. When new workers with young families are considering opportunities, there is an immediate checklist of requirements. This list includes the availability of:
More than half of Vermont infants & toddlers likely
to need child care don’t have access to high-quality,
affordable programs.
1. affordable housing
2. high-quality, affordable child care
3. a quality of public education system
Early childhood investment is workforce development.
Employers need individuals who have strong cognitive, communications and social and emotional skills.
Science tells us that the most critical time for development occurs during the early years, laying the foundation for success in school, relationships and future work. To encourage healthy development, young children
need access to quality learning environments.
Research demonstrates that every dollar invested into early childhood programs yields $7-$10 in return.5
1. LGK analysis of data from U.S. Census Bureau and Vermont Department of Health
2. http://www.childaction.org/providers/booklets/docs/Solutions%20for%20Employee%20Child%20Care.pd, p. 2.
Primary source: http://abc.fpg.unc.edu/
3. IBID
4. Shellenback, Karen. “Child Care & Parent Productivity: Making the Business Case. Cornell University, 2004
5. http://heckmanequation.org/content/resource/invest-ealy-childhood-development-reduce-deficits-strengthen-economy
Consistent investment throughout life is important to
sustain and build upon early gains in skills, but dollar-fordollar early interventions yield a much higher rate of return.
This graph developed by Nobel-winning economist James
J. Heckman shows that early investment is the best workforce development investment.
Mitigating Other Public Costs
Investment into high-quality, affordable child care can help mitigate
future costs in the public education,
health care and corrections
systems because children with a
strong foundation during the early
years are more likely to enter
kindergarten prepared and ready to
succeed. Children with high-quality
early childhood experiences:
“Economically speaking, early childhood
programs are a good investment, with
inflation-adjusted annual rates of return
on the funds dedicated to these programs
estimated to reach 10 percent or higher.
Very few alternative investments can
promise that kind of return.”
-Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the US
Federal Reserve
• Score higher on school-readiness tests
• Are 40% less likely to need special education or be held
back a grade
• Are 70% less likely to commit a violent crime by age 186
Even a small cost savings in special education, for example,
could have a significant impact on a sector of educational
spending that has nearly doubled since 2001, while student
population has declined.
Vermont has a child care challenge.
More than half of infants and toddlers likely to need child care in Vermont do not have access to high
quality, affordable programs.
• 40-50% of Vermont’s children enter kindergarten unprepared.7
• 1 in 4 of Vermont’s children do not have expected levels of social and emotional development.8
• 1 in 6 of Vermont’s children rank below expected levels on communications skills such as taking
turns to speak, using full sentences, conveying needs, wants or thoughts; and using full sentences.9
It’s a solvable problem. To create a thriving economy today and in our future, we must increase our public
and private investment in high-quality, affordable early care and learning programs.
“As a Republican and as a business leader, my primary focus is on bottom-line results. I care about solutions
that work—the kind of policies that transcend ideology. That’s why I’m a proud member of ReadyNation, an
organization that advocates for bipartisan, research-based solutions that are proven winners.”
– Roy J. Bostock, Vice Chairman of the Board of Delta Air Lines, a former Chair of Yahoo! Inc., and a retired
director of Morgan Stanley is a member of ReadyNation, a national organization with over 1,400 bipartisan
members working to advance effective policies and programs that improve business competitiveness by
helping children get a good start in life.
6. Watson, Sara. “The Costs of Disinvestment.” Partnership for America’s Economic Success, 2010.
7. Vermont Insights K-Readiness Survey Data, data for recent years
8. Vermont Insights K-Readiness Survey Data, 2014-15
9. IBID