“Today the NC House of Representatives took an important step toward stabilizing our state’s child care system – but moms, families and businesses are counting on lawmakers to do more. The appropriations included in the NC House budget of $60 million in year one and $80 million in year two to increase child care subsidy reimbursement rates, plus $25 million to lower parent co-pays, are a good start, but not enough to stabilize our child care system, strengthen our state’s industries and its economy, and provide the support working families and rural communities need. 

“With 294 child care program sites closing last year, 1,500 more at risk of closing, and the child care crisis costing North Carolina a shocking $5.65 billion each year in lost economic activity, we are counting on state legislators to invest the full $220 million our state needs. This would create a minimum statewide reimbursement rate floor based on our state's most recent child care rate study and move reimbursements closer to the costs of providing child care. This investment would help prevent program closures and make quality, affordable child care more available in rural communities, which have been hit hardest.

“North Carolina moms are grateful NC lawmakers are working to stabilize our state’s child care system, and we’re relying on all our state legislators to make the full investment needed to make child care affordable and accessible in our state. Only then will more parents be able to go to work, more families be able to pay their bills, more children thrive, more businesses be able to access the workers they need, more early childhood educators be paid the living wages they deserve – and only then will our state’s economy succeed.”