As part of an annual report on the wellbeing of children in the state, the Michigan League for Public Policy (MLPP) is emphasizing the need for stronger investments into childcare.
On Wednesday, the League released its 2024 Kids Count in Michigan data profile, looking at data from 2017 to 2022 or 2023 and taking stock of 20 different indicators of child wellbeing across five areas: early childhood, health and safety, education, economic security, and family and community.
With the profile showcasing an additional need for childcare, Michigan Kids Count released an additional report detailing ways the state could better support the childcare sector.
According to the profile, 49 of Michigan’s 83 counties saw an increase in the number of children ages 5 and under with all parents in the labor force between 2017 and 2022, rising from 66.2% to 67%.
“Our state continues to have a significant unmet need for affordable, high-quality childcare due to a lack of state investment. For every $1,000 invested in the care and education of school-age children here in Michigan, our state is investing just $210 in the care and education of young children, with the majority of that small amount allocated to state-funded pre-K,” MLPP President and CEO Monique Stanton said in a statement.
“If we want to have strong communities and a thriving economy, Michigan needs to do more to prioritize childcare, especially for children ages birth to 3 years old,” Stanton said.
While there were previously a number of federal dollars available to help stabilize childcare, the funding was exhausted last September, said Anne Kuhnen, the policy director for Kids Count in Michigan.
“We know that childcare is an essential resource for families, right? It’s important both for children for their cognitive and social emotional development, but it’s also important for parents, right? We want parents to be able to engage fully in the labor force. … But right now, the funding from the state for early childhood is really just not sufficient to meet the needs of all children,” Kuhnen told the Advance.
In the accompanying report on childcare investments in the state, MLPP encouraged additional state spending on the Child Development and Care program, which supports low-income working families by providing access to early care and afterschool programs. In order to fuel this investment, MLPP recommended implementing a progressive income tax and bringing back Michigan’s estate tax, which has not been collected since 2008.
MLPP also called for improved access to childcare scholarships by exempting families facing homelessness from work requirements and adopting minimum eligibility standards that allow families to access care while completing paperwork to demonstrate proof of need and qualification.
According to the report, only 6% of eligible children receive subsidized childcare, with childcare subsidies benefiting 3.5% of the more than 650,000 children under 6 in Michigan.
The report also called for increased compensation for childcare providers, noting that low compensation in the field is particularly harmful to Black and Hispanic women who are overrepresented in support roles and settings with infants and toddlers, which are both associated with lower pay.
According to a statement from the league, approximately 97% of Michigan’s childcare workers are women earning less than $15 an hour on average.
It recommends boosting subsidy reimbursement rates to allow providers to pay a competitive wage and encourage them to participate in the Child Development and Care program. The League also called for establishing automatic eligibility for childcare scholarships for parents working in childcare settings, noting many childcare workers rely on public benefits due to low pay in the field.
Alongside calling for additional investments into childcare, the League noted improvements in a number of key indicators of child wellbeing, noting that pandemic-era support likely contributed to a decline in childhood and early childhood poverty, a decrease in families experiencing a high housing cost burden and a decline in students experiencing homelessness. It also reported a decline in infant mortality.
In 2022, nearly 20% of Michigan children 5 and younger was in poverty, with 17.8% of children 17 and under experiencing poverty.
Additionally the state is beginning to show recovery from a decrease of students graduating on time during the pandemic, with 81.8% of Michigan students completing high school on time in 2023 up from 81% in 2022.
However the 2024 data profile also pointed to worsening trends in preschool enrollment for 3 and 4 year olds, as well as a decrease in the number of third grade students proficient in reading.
In 2022, 44.3% of Michigan’s 3 and 4 year olds were enrolled in preschool with Kuhnen noting that preschool enrollment at these ages dropped across the nation during the pandemic. However, investments into Michigan’s Great Start Readiness Program — which provides free preschool to eligible four year olds — over recent years could lead to improvements in future years, Kuhnen said. Programs like universal pre-K for 4-year-olds can also provide crucial early learning experiences, ensuring kids walk into the classroom ready to learn, Kuhnen said.
She also noted that the state’s third-grade reading scores were declining even in the years before the pandemic.
“We’re hopeful that this is not indicative of some long term, you know, perpetually lower scores. But of course, I think it’s important to note that these scores were declining for many years, even before the pandemic. So while there was a notable drop in, you know, 2021 and seen also in 2022 but we’ve seen issues with third grade reading going back many years now,” Kuhnen said.
Similar to how schools experienced interruptions as a result of the pandemic, fewer children made their regular doctors appointments, Kuhnen said, with the data profile showing a decrease in lead testing for children ages 1 to 2. However, a new law signed in 2023 will guarantee lead screenings for children between 12 and 24 months of age, which Kuhnen said should have positive impacts on the number of children receiving lead testing as the data catches up to the law.
The number of children receiving cash assistance, as well as the number of families enrolled in the Family Independence Program — Michigan’s basic cash assistance program — decreased in 75 of Michigan’s 83 counties, which Kuhnen attributed to barriers to accessing the program as opposed to a lack of need.
“It basically reaches a new all time low every year, not because fewer families are living in poverty or could use cash assistance, but rather because the state imposes restricted barriers to access the program, and because the payment standard is so low it hasn’t been raised in like 15 years,” Kuhnen said.
