MANSFIELD — Shamia Foster knows she’s one of the lucky ones.
She’s got a village — including her mom and dad — supporting her as she raises her 10-year-old son.
She makes a livable wage as a sales representative for Gorman-Rupp.
Her schedule is flexible, so she can say morning prayers with her son, check that he has his homework and make sure he eats breakfast before he gets on the school bus each morning.
But as a single mom, coordinating and paying for child care is a challenge.
Foster used to rely on her parents for full-time summer care. After her father was diagnosed with cancer, she decided to look for part-time care to make things easier on them.
Now she pays $520 a month for her son to go to a summer program three days a week.
“It can be very tough, even if you have a job,” she said. “When you make above the income for (child care assistance), you’re paying out-of-pocket.
“I don’t mind working. I’ve worked since I was like 14,” she said. “But you don’t have any resources either.”
For some families, the cost of child care outweighs a pay check
Stories like Foster’s aren’t unique. Cost is one of the most common barriers for families seeking high-quality child care, locally and nationwide.
Patricia Lewis decided to put her career as a middle school teacher on pause after the birth of her first child. She and her husband crunched the numbers and decided it made more sense financially for her not to work.
“It was kind of a matter of weighing out the cost of child care and the income I would have made,” she said. “It didn’t make economic sense to work.”
Being a stay-at-home mom to five sons was still plenty of work — and it was rewarding. But there were financial drawbacks.
Lewis re-entered the workforce when her youngest son began first grade. She said she’s not sure she’ll be able to retire early — or at all.
“I got to teach them all to read, so I enjoyed that,” she said. “But when it comes to saving up for retirement, it has had a really big impact.”
What is affordable child care?
Affordable is a relative term. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services considers child care affordable if it costs no more than 7 percent of a family’s income.
But data on child care costs and average incomes indicate that’s rarely a reality for families.
In Ohio, the average annual cost for full-time infant care at a licensed center was about $12,989 in 2023, according to the Ohio Child Care Resource and Referral Association.
That means a family would need to earn between $176,442 a year for child care to be affordable under HHS’ 7-percent recommendation.
Care at a licensed in-home provider is typically less expensive, but far from cheap. At an annual cost of $9,700 for one infant, a family would need to earn at least $138,571.
Meanwhile, the median household income in Ohio was $69,680 in 2023.
But what about north central Ohio specifically?
A 2022 analysis by the U.S. Department of Labor Women’s Bureau dove deeper, breaking down the data by county.
The bureau found that in Ashland County, it would take 11.8 percent of the median household income to pay for one infant’s annual child care costs.
Average child care costs made up an even bigger chunk of income for families in Richland County (12.5 percent) and Knox County (18.6 percent).
“For a single mother who has an infant and a preschool child, she can be looking at paying around $355 a week for child care,” said Susan Martin, data manager at the YWCA of North Central Ohio.
“A lot of times we talk about child care being more expensive because it can be a family’s largest bill.”
Ohio has one of the lowest allowable incomes in the nation for child care assistance
There are several programs that help low-income families in Ohio cover the cost of child care, including publicly funded child care (PFCC), the Ohio Child Care Choice Voucher, Head Start and Early Head Start.
But many of these programs aren’t available to Ohio families because of income eligibility guidelines, which are some of the lowest in the country.
In other words, families like Foster’s make too much to qualify for help.
PFCC is paid for using a mix of state and federal funds. It’s available to families whose household income is at or below 145 percent of federal poverty guidelines.
That’s just $38,643 annually for a family of three, and $46,618 for a family of four.
Families with an income of up to 150 percent of the federal poverty guideline can qualify if their child has special needs.
The Buckeye State has the third lowest income eligibility level for publicly funded child care, according to a recent analysis by Policy Matters Ohio.
They found Ohio is one of only 14 states with an income eligibility level below 200 percent and has the third lowest income eligibility level overall.
“We’ve been slowly increasing (the eligibility threshold) over the last couple budgets, there’s always discussion on increasing it more,” Ohio Sen. Mark Romanchuk said.
“We want to set (thresholds) as high as we can afford. It all comes down to affordability. We’re not the federal government.
“We can only spend as much as we take in. We can’t print money, we can’t borrow money. We’re constitutionally mandated to have a balanced budget.”
Once enrolled, a family can stay on the PFCC program until its income reaches 300 percent of the federal poverty guideline, though the copay increases along with its income.
Romanchuk said he believes supporting child care access is a good use of public funds because it boosts the economy and helps parents re-enter the workforce.
“This is a program that helps individuals get back in the workforce and better their lives, better their family lives,” he said. “At the same time, you’re better preparing kids so when they enter kindergarten, they’re ready to go.
“Not to mention it just adds to our economy. It adds to our business community. It just makes Ohio overall stronger.”
Child Care Choice Voucher helps bridge the gap, but may be underfunded
Ohio also has a Child Care Choice Voucher Program that provides assistance to families earning between 146 and 200 percent of the federal poverty guidelines.
It started as a pilot program funded with COVID-19 relief funds and was recently integrated into the state’s new biennium budget.
But unlike PFCC, state funding for the program is capped. Ohio lawmakers allocated $100 million for each fiscal year in its biennial budget, meaning the program will only operate until funds run out.
The Department of Children and Youth had previously budgeted $75 million for the program in fiscal year 2026 and $150 million in fiscal year 2027.
In addition to income requirements, parents and guardians who receive PFCC or Child Care Choice Vouchers must be either working, in school or participating in job training. Homeless families are also eligible.
While child care assistance is designed to help low-income families and allow parents to work, low-income guidelines can cause a catch-22 scenario.
Some parents decline promotions because the pay raise that comes with it isn’t enough to cover the cost of losing assistance — a phenomenon known as the benefits cliff.
“We have staff that have had to decline having a pay raise or worry about having a pay raise, because if they have a pay raise, they might no longer get their PFCC, they might no longer get their medical card, and they might no longer get those other supports that are available to them,” said Jeanetta Elia, director of M1 Kids, a child care center in Mansfield.
Most of Ohio’s child care funding comes from the federal government
Ohio allocated $1.1 billion for child care funding in fiscal year 2024, which Romanchuk said shows child care is a priority for the legislature.
But an analysis by Policy Matters Ohio found that more than three-fourths of the Ohio’s $1.1 billion in child care allocation came from the federal government, specifically the Child Care Development Block Grant and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
Others argue the state should be doing more.
Earlier this year, Gov. Mike DeWine proposed raising the PFCC eligibility threshold to 160 percent of the federal poverty line — legislators ultimately cut the provision from the state budget.
Meanwhile, ten U.S. states and the District of Columbia have child care assistance eligibility levels at or above 300 percent of the federal poverty level.
“If I could change one thing immediately about the child care system, it would be this: improve wages and benefits for early childhood educators while simultaneously easing the financial burden on families through expanded state support for child care,” Elia said.
“Both of these issues are deeply connected, and solving one without the other leaves the system broken.”
