The California Budget & Policy Center was proud to co-host a legislative briefing on child care alongside the Legislative Women’s Caucus and the Child Care Law Center. The briefing brought together legislators, legislative staff, and budget consultants to build a shared understanding of California’s child care programs and the policy choices shaping them.
Laura Pryor, Research Director at the Budget Center, and Julia Forte Frudden, Senior Policy Analyst at the Child Care Law Center, provided an overview of how publicly funded child care works in California and why effective public policy is critical to supporting children, families, and child care providers across the state.
A Broken Market in Need of Solutions
A central theme of the briefing was a reality long felt by tens of thousands of California families and providers alike. Child care is a broken market.
Families can’t afford to pay. For many families, especially those without access to state subsidies, child care alone can take up the majority of their earnings.
At the same time, providers can’t afford to stay. Despite the essential role they play in supporting children’s development and enabling parents to work, early care and education remains a low-paying profession. Provider wages lag far behind the statewide median, and without meaningful policy intervention, it could take decades for wages to catch up.
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This disconnect reflects a fundamental market failure. What families can afford to pay is far less than what providers need to earn fair, sustainable wages.
Thoughtful, well-designed public policy can help bridge the gap between affordability for families and sustainability for providers. Public investment is essential to stabilizing child care programs and ensuring it works for everyone involved.
To move toward that better way, it is critical for policymakers and staff to understand how California’s current child care programs operate, where they succeed, and where gaps remain.
Building Knowledge to Support Better Outcomes
By grounding participants in the fundamentals of California’s child care programs, the briefing aimed to equip those working on policy and budget decisions with the knowledge needed to advance more effective solutions. Improving child care policy is not only about supporting families and providers today, but also about investing in the long-term well-being of children and communities statewide.
The Budget Center is grateful to the Legislative Women’s Caucus, the Child Care Law Center, and the legislators, legislative staff, and budget consultants who joined us for this important conversation. Special thanks to Assemblymembers Cecelia Aguiar-Curry, Mia Bonta, Lisa Calderon, and Pilar Schiavo for joining us. Prioritizing child care is essential to building a more equitable California, now and for generations to come.
