On April 4, 2018 Senator Patty Murray visited ESD 112’s Hough Early Learning Center to learn more about the parent perspective on the difficulty of finding quality, affordable child care. She’s proposed a Child Care for Working Families Act to address the issue.

Why is child care so expensive and hard to find?

It’s the perfect storm of rising costs, due to minimum wage increases and other increasing operating costs, rising demand in a growing region, and the fact that so many programs have closed since 2002.

Click the graphic below for more details.

ESD 112 stands to lose an estimated $500,000 in 2018 due to the rising cost of providing child care. For many Southwest Washington families, child care is more expensive than their mortgage payment, if they can even secure care at all.