The Worker’s View: Ohio Kids First rallies support for working families

As grocery and housing prices rise across the country, parents – especially those with multiple children – are feeling the financial strain. As nonpartisan advocacy group Ohio Kids First knows, the state’s regressive tax code and a lack of adequate childcare resources and state-level support for working families only make life harder for parents to afford basic necessities while also setting their kids up for success in the classroom. That’s why Ohio Kids First is rallying on the west lawn of the Ohio Statehouse at noon on Tuesday, June 17. 

There’s a national childcare crisis that hits particularly hard in Ohio. The cost of childcare is increasing, yet it’s challenging to find and retain childcare workers due to the low pay for these positions. These difficulties are amplified for families in rural areas, where childcare options are limited, and for families who work nontraditional hours and require childcare in the evenings and early mornings. And, as Ohio Kids First has found, even when help is technically available, there are barriers to access that prevent families in need of assistance from actually receiving it. 

“Ohio is unique in that we rank almost dead last in the nation for eligibility for state help for childcare,” said Ohio Kids First Executive Director Rachel Selby. “A lot of people think, ‘Well, if you’re poor, the government will help you pay for childcare.’ While it’s true that there’s some state assistance out there, the requirements are that you have to be working or be in school to get those dollars, and we rank almost last in the nation for that federal poverty level to tap into it.”

The Federal Poverty Level (FPL) is a measure used to determine the minimum amount of money a family needs to make to afford basic necessities. The calculation takes into account the number of people in the household, the cost of living, and other factors. Across the country, the average family can access childcare assistance from the state if they make less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL), but in Ohio, the threshold is 145 percent. 

“We’re expected to figure this out and make it work. They tell us to ‘Just work harder.’ But Ohio families are working hard. They’re doing everything right. They’re paying their taxes and sometimes working multiple jobs, and it’s still not enough,” Selby said. “70 percent of parents of young children have missed work or class at least once in the past three months for childcare-related reasons. For the average mother with two kids in care, the first almost $10 of every hour worked is going to childcare. So, for the average earner with two kids in care, a mom has to work until Tax Day (April 15) just to cover childcare.” 

Of course, parents are more than the labor they provide, and children deserve support because they are human beings who are unable to use their voices to advocate for themselves. But cost-benefit analysis, return on investment, and other related economic talking points tend to garner more attention from the legislature, so Ohio Kids First seeks to enact policy changes through financial appeals. 

“Being very clear with our legislature about not having proper state investment in children is what we do,” Selby said. “This is affecting more than just the children; it’s affecting Ohio’s economy. The Ohio Chamber of Commerce released a report this spring that says there’s $5.48 billion of untapped potential, so we lose $5.48 billion every year related to child care issues. We’re using these numbers to try to drive decision-making at the policy level because the private sector is unable to solve this on its own. I like to joke that if this were solvable in the private sector, mothers would have figured this out a long time ago.” 

Five years into the pandemic, some business owners who lament that “nobody wants to work” are now ready to acknowledge that the childcare crisis is one of the factors impacting their ability to hire and staff. Parents exist who can’t enter the workforce because they can’t afford childcare, can’t find quality care, or can’t otherwise access the care they need for their children. And this reality disproportionately impacts women and people of color, who are kept out of the workforce at higher rates. These issues are then further compounded by the fact that not everyone works a nine-to-five job, and few childcare centers offer second- or third-shift care options. 

“The state has a responsibility to invest in this area, particularly in the zero-to-five [years old] space, because that’s where child care is most expensive and where children are most vulnerable, and where we’re seeing the most rapid brain development,” Selby said. “So, on top of the economic and financial impacts on the family and community, 65 percent of Ohio’s children across the board are entering kindergarten not ready to learn based on their kindergarten readiness scores, and we know that’s directly linked.” 

Selby, who is an adoptive parent and foster parent herself, has personally experienced the same challenges as the families for whom Ohio Kids First advocates, and she knows that there’s more involved than the economic impact. Teachers and educational researchers recognize that many children who start behind tend to remain behind, so a lack of kindergarten readiness can snowball throughout a child’s school years. 

Ohio Kids First understands how to address these issues, having spent years examining what other states that excel in this area are doing. In addition to increasing the FPL to 200 percent for child care support, they’re advocating for a refundable child tax credit that would provide families with $1,000 in tax refunds for every child under age 7. This provision was included in the original state budget proposed by Gov. Mike DeWine, but was removed by the House. When the Senate failed to reinstate it, organizers moved to organize the noon rally on the Statehouse lawn for Tuesday, June 17.

In spite of these hurdles, Selby remains confident that policy change is imminent because family support for children is something everyone – from both sides of the aisle – agrees on. The challenge is helping politicians understand that money spent on these initiatives today will pay off in the long run. 

“A lot of politicians are worried about the dollars spent or saved today,” said Selby, who added the high upfront costs could pale in relation to the eventual financial return, which she pegged as high as 13 percent. “This is expensive. What we really need to shore this up and fix it for the state is going to cost a lot of money. But the return on investment is huge.”