N.H.'s child care system is broken. They're trying to fix it.
CONCORD, N.H. — Up to 90 percent of a child’s brain is formed by the time they turn 5 years old, so early childhood care really matters. But the system providing that care in New Hampshire is in rough shape.
Child care is too expensive for most families. Care for an infant typically costs between $10,140 to $15,000 a year or more. If you need care for one infant plus a 4-year-old in center-based care? That’s usually more than $28,000 a year, according to 2022 data from the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute.
And that’s if you’re lucky enough to get off the long wait-lists. The institute’s data suggests the state could be lacking as many as 8,300 spots statewide.
Cora-Lynne Hoppe, who owns a child care center in Rochester, said from her vantage point, the system looks like a three-legged stool on the verge of toppling.
