Rebecca Woitkowski: For the sake of working families, New Hampshire must make child care investments

Ask almost any parent in New Hampshire with young children, and they will tell you their “child care story” – their struggles with long waitlists, no availability, or rising costs.

It is a story that has only gotten worse in the last few years – and not just in New Hampshire. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, there were 58,000 fewer day care workers in the U.S. last month compared with February 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic began.

In New Hampshire, a recent survey of Granite State residents showed that 61 percent of mothers say that they, or someone they know, have had to miss work or not take a job because of a lack of child care. Nationally, nearly 1 in 4 parents reported being fired from their jobs due to the continuing breakdown of child care, reported ReadyNation, a national business member organization, in early February.

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