March 10, 2025
As of 2024, over 15 million children in the United States (66.7% of all children) under age 6 have all available parents in the workforce and are potentially in need of child care options. Yet, the reality for many of these families is that child care is inaccessible, unaffordable or simply nonexistent.
These child care gaps are exacerbated in rural areas, where child care supply is greatly lacking. While there is broad bipartisan support for child care at all levels of government, exactly how much more child care is needed is challenging to know. Work done by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) Early Childhood Initiative has shed some light on the topic but more needs to be done to determine regional and local variations in child care need.
Building on the work of the BPC, the Buffett Early Childhood Institute at the University of Nebraska and Child Care Aware of America are both working with states to refine the need and supply in their states using the latest data available from the Census Bureau, national parent surveys, and an enhanced spatial analysis and mapping technique.
The recent work, when applied to Nebraska data, has shined a light on how important it is to understand the gap at the community level and how, when funding is targeted at high need areas, progress can be achieved.