Over 1 Million Parents Lose Work Hours Due To Insufficient Child Care, Report Shows

If you're a working parent, you've no doubt felt the burden of managing child care with your job one way or another. A new index report from KPMG, a Big Four accounting firm, shows the reality of the U.S. child care crisis. The report estimates that 1.2 to 1.5 million workers, 90% of whom are moms, have to shorten working hours or miss work each month because of a lack of affordable child care or insufficient availability.

This shortened or missing work equates to 1.4 billion hours lost yearly in the United States, indicating that losing even just one hour of work each week can cost families an estimated $780 to $1,504 in annual lost income. 

Experts discuss what this means for families as well as some alternatives to child care for those in need.

Impacts of Losing Work Hours for Parents

Losing work hours due to the lack of affordable child care impacts parents who may already be living paycheck-to-paycheck. Not to mention the increased stress of having to reallocate hours in an already busy day.

Levels of impact vary from family to family and reasons can range from personal to factors outside of our control. For example, the number of employees leaving the child care workforce reached a high post-pandemic level in September, making it difficult for working families to find options.

Moms are impacted across the board

The KPMG study shows mothers comprise 77% of full-time workers who miss work due to child care challenges.

"My husband and I had to make the tough decision to remove our 3-year-old from daycare," says Winnie Thompson, an Atlanta-based entrepreneur. 

She and her husband, a technician, had been paying over $1,300 a month for child care, while also supporting another child who's a college freshman. After experiencing some car issues, they had to cut costs.

"I'm thankful to have the flexibility to work for myself—but I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm extremely nervous about balancing a busy toddler with a busy work-from-home schedule," says Thompson.

Brittney Holmes Jackson, MFT, a mother and therapist working in community mental health says, "My husband is a resident doctor. One might hear that and think we are well off or financially stable, but with two small children, it's far from the truth. We recently talked about me quitting my job (because he can't quit his and return later) so that we can pull our children from daycare, terminate our lease, and move nearly 100 miles south to live with his parents."  

Holmes previously worked 12 years as an educator and feels heartbroken to have to consider giving up her dream career because of child care expenses. 

Mothers who've worked hard to build careers, some being single mothers, are disproportionally being affected by the child care crisis. 

Families with disabilities feel the weight

Millions of parents of children with disabilities experience the greatest barriers in finding care, according to a study published by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Robyn Linscott, the Director of Education and Family Policy at The Arc of the United States, confirms this, saying there is a severe shortage of child care programs that are willing or able to serve children with disabilities.

"Children with disabilities are also often suspended and expelled from child care settings at high rates because of behaviors that are often related to their disability. With limited options, many parents must make agonizing choices to reduce work hours or leave jobs entirely to provide care—which puts immense financial strain on their families."

Linscott notes the child care crisis makes clear that our country's early childhood infrastructure is lacking—but families of children with disabilities are the ones truly left behind in the struggle to find high-quality, affordable, and accessible care. 

"For families who do find a space for their child, their experiences are not always the same as their child's non-disabled peers," she notes. "Due to all of this, parents of children with disabilities are more likely to experience work disruptions or be forced to leave their careers entirely." 

Income insecurity increases

The KPMG index shows the lost work hours due to a parent needing to care for their child translates to between $4,680 and $9,026 in annual lost income for just six hours lost per week.

According to the Department of Labor, child care tuition takes up between 8% and 19.3% of the average family's income per child. The lost hours can create income security for families at a time when food, goods, services, and bills are more expensive.

Curtis "Dubblup" Washington is a fitness professional and business owner. Both he and his wife, who's in real estate, needed options for their 3-year-old.

"We started looking into [child care], and holy smokes! It was like having a second mortgage," says Washington. "Even then, we couldn't justify paying that much just to have a quiet house for a few hours. It would put us in a tight financial spot and have us working harder just to break even."

Since the Washingtons don't live near family, they chose to sacrifice one of the household incomes to stay home with the kids. 

Alternative Child Care Options

Leslie Forde, the CEO and founder of Mom's Hierarchy of Needs, recognizes the work local and state policymakers are doing to address the child care crisis for working families.

"There are free or deeply subsidized child care programs and PreK in several states for low-income families. However, the need is much broader than that, and supply, especially in more rural areas, is still an issue," she says. "Parents often have to 'DIY' their imperfect solutions. If your organization has a 'backup care' program, which often provides subsidized child care with a network of private sitters and local daycare centers, it can be a great solution when primary child care plans fall apart."

Public, private, local, and alternative options for parents struggling to find affordable child care include: 

• Government programs, such as ChildCare.gov allow you to search for child care resources in your state using this tool
• Federally funded programs, such as Head Start and Early Head Start are free options for families that meet income eligibility requirements
• State-funded prekindergarten programs that prepare children for kindergarten and provide some time for parents
• Programs for military families that offer child care assistance 
• Local assistance and scholarships
• Employer-sponsored Dependent Care Flexible Spending accounts
• Child care resources or direct child care provider by an employer
• College or university child care, Tribal Child Care Financial Assistance, or child care assistance for Indigenous People
• Dependent IRS credits and an Earned Income tax credit are also possible for parents paying for child care

Chris Bennett, the CEO and founder of Wonderschool suggests that in-home programs leverage infrastructure to get up and running quickly with lower overhead costs. This, along with increasing the number of in-home programs, can reduce child care costs.

"In-home programs are often located in neighborhoods as opposed to cities, making them more accessible for local families, particularly in rural communities, and cutting down on parents' commutes," says Bennett.