Another Option for Georgia’s Historic Budget Surplus: Invest in Child Care
By the GEEARS Policy Team
Last week, Governor Brian Kemp proposed using part of Georgia’s unprecedented budget surplus to issue tax refunds to Georgians next April. The plan calls for approximately one billion dollars to be returned to individuals and families in amounts ranging from $250 – $500.
While these rebates will provide some economic relief, another urgent need is going unmet. Georgia’s struggling child care industry is significantly underfunded, leaving the families who rely on this care, and the professionals who provide it, in crisis. This despite the fact that the State has an ample cash surplus, estimated at $11 billion, along with a $5.5 billion rainy day fund. With record-breaking inflation rates and a skyrocketing cost of living, eight in ten Georgia parents with young children reported in 2023 difficulty affording a basic need. In particular, families struggle to access affordable child care, which can have a devastating effect on a parent’s ability to support their family, advance in a career or educational track, and contribute to the economy. In the same poll, more than one-third of these parents indicated that child care challenges have led them or their partner to leave the workforce entirely.
While families are struggling, the child care programs they rely on are facing unprecedented challenges of their own. According to research by Quality Care for Children, more than one in ten providers reported that they may have to close their programs. Wages for some of our highly skilled and credentialed early educators are low enough to qualify as poverty-level.
These interconnected challenges for both working families and child care providers could be greatly alleviated by a meaningful investment in our child care industry, one that can make an enduring impact on children’s futures, their families’ financial well-being, early educators, and Georgia’s economy. Since federal pandemic relief funding for child care ended last month, the need has never been more urgent.
Georgia already has a mechanism in place to make such an investment: the Child Care and Parent Services (CAPS) program, which helps working families afford child care. In the last legislative session, Georgia’s General Assembly allocated an additional $9.3 million dollars to the CAPS overall budget. However, the need is far greater. Families participating in CAPS must satisfy stringent work and income eligibility requirements (Georgia’s income eligibility is the lowest in the United States), and the demand far exceeds the supply current funding allows. Adequately funding CAPS would allow more families in need to access this critical support and ensure child care programs can keep their doors open and offer high-quality care.
Georgia’s recent investments in child care budget pale 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.
With Georgia’s historic $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 Governor Kemp and the members of Georgia’s General Assembly to expand their vision for our state’s surplus and act now to make child care a priority.