Parents struggling to afford child care, you’re not alone

If you know anyone with a young child, you’ve likely heard horror stories about the challenges of trying to find and afford child care. Connecticut is experiencing a child care crisis, without enough infant and toddler seats especially for all children who need them.

Now, there’s new data that shows what parents have known all along: child care is hard to afford and hard to find, especially for working class families and for children with disabilities.

We recently partnered with organizations across the entire state and the RAPID Survey Project, based in the Stanford Center on Early Childhood, to talk to 1,803 parents of children under the age of six across all eight Connecticut counties.

Parents shared their experiences trying to access and afford child care, and where child care fit into the biggest stressors in their lives.

“Finding affordable child care that helps my wife return to the workplace [is my family’s biggest challenge],” a parent in Windham County said. 

“[My biggest challenge is] balancing two children and two full-time jobs, particularly with a child with special needs who requires a plethora of outside supports,” another parent in Hartford County told us.

Overall, parents’ responses show show:

• affordability is the number one reason families surveyed that don’t currently have child care aren’t accessing it;
  
  
• almost two in three (63%) of Connecticut parents report spending more than 7% of their income on child care (experts say that child care is considered “affordable” when it costs less than 7% of a family’s income);
  
  
• there are significant barriers to families being able to use Care4Kids subsidies to help pay for child care;
  
  
• more than two in three (69%) of Connecticut parents of a young child with a disability report difficulty finding a child care provider who can meet their child’s needs.

So, if you’ve ever struggled to find or afford child care in Connecticut, you’re not alone. But together, we can fix this.

As we head into the new year, The Connecticut Project Action Fund is going to be pushing for policymakers to prioritize getting parents relief for child care costs. 

We’re going to need parents speaking out to make that happen. You can send a note to your legislators today asking them to fund child care in 2025 – and make sure you’re signed up for our emails so you’re ready to act in the weeks ahead.