Childcare is the biggest issue in workforce we can’t fix.

But we can damn well try when we're training people.

The issue.

People have kids. People need training to get better jobs. America doesn’t do enough to help people care for their kids in order to get better jobs, but we can try.

Explain.

America doesn’t have enough childcare, and the childcare it does have costs too much. If you don’t have someone to safely care for the people you love most, it’s hard to get a good job—or any job, really.

From Marketplace:

Amber Lord knew she wanted to keep working after she had her baby. She was in her late 30s and she had a career she loved in marketing. But when Lord and her husband started looking at daycares near their home in Virginia Beach, they ran into a problem:

“They were $25,000 a year,” Lord recalled. “And that was for four days a week.”

And even on those four days, daycare didn’t cover an eight-hour workday. Lord and her husband would need supplemental care on top of that. They sat down and did the math.

“We were like, ‘We can’t make this make sense,'” Lord said. “I would just be working 100% of the time to have my child in childcare 100% of the time.”

The costs to employers also can be staggering. Worker childcare arrangements falling apart cost employers $13 billion a year in lost productivity. Employers can see significant boosts in productivity and retention by providing childcare benefits, yet fewer than one in five employers offer these benefits.

The costs to the American workforce are getting worse as the Trump Administration and American employers have shifted away from work-from-home options due to feelings not facts:¹

The share of working mothers age 25 to 44 with young children has fallen nearly every month this year, dropping by nearly 3 percentage points between January and June, to the lowest level in more than three years, according to an analysis of federal data by Misty Heggeness, a professor at the University of Kansas and former principal economist at the Census Bureau.

The drop has been enough to wipe out many of the gains made by working mothers after the pandemic, when remote work arrangements and flexible schedules lured many back to the labor force.

Despite everything, this is a problem hilariously underappreciated by political decisionmakers in Washington, despite D.C. being a city where childcare costs at least two of four limbs, something I can confirm from personal experience. If you want a policy area where the advanced age and large wealth of many politicians produces a massive disconnect with working Americans, it’s here.²

Because of that, I don’t think there is a big society-wide answer possible anytime soon. The incentives aren’t there for the private sector to increase supply—or pay the wages needed to avoid pushing childcare workers out of the business. The constant drive from investors to cut costs—and the CEO-led tilt away from workplace flexibilities—underscore that you probably shouldn’t bet on employers to cover the costs, even if they reap plenty of the benefits.

That leaves the best option being massive government investment—meaning subsidization. Yet, the best I can see political leaders mustering right now are the delayed incentive of tax credits.

But waiting on a big fix doesn’t mean we can’t do anything. And if you train people for better jobs, you need to be trying something.

The costs of falling into the too-big-for-workforce trap.

Here is a sentiment that I won’t say is widespread in workforce, but I have heard it enough that I think it needs to be engaged: it shouldn’t be a workforce program’s responsibility to fix America’s childcare crisis.

I understand how workforce providers can get here. The childcare crisis is a big problem that speaks to fundamental glitches in American social policy and political leadership that go beyond getting someone a job. The thinking that it’s not the workforce system’s problem is definitely encouraged by Congress’ anti-“welfare” build of federal workforce funding programs, which allows using workforce dollars for childcare only as a last resort.

But if you’re not trying to do anything on childcare, you’re missing out on serving the golden population of workers who are most likely to thrive—and stay employed—coming out of your programs. As I have written about a few times since spring, the magic population for many workforce providers are workers ages 25 to 34. People young enough to really grow into a good job (and not deal with things like age discrimination) but with enough life behind them that they understand the importance of that job more than a teenager who thinks $1,000 is a lot of money.³

That 25-to-34 population also is more likely to have kids, too. Accordingly, if you want better results from your workforce program but you don’t try to provide childcare, you’re undercutting your results.

So what should we do about it?

This definitely won’t be the last time I write about this issue in this space, so for now, my main recommendation is to try and not get caught up on one strategy or another. I have seen policymakers argue for no solution because it’s not a perfect solution. For example, I have encountered folks so deeply concerned about the possible negative implications of widespread employer-provided care that they can’t support it in any form.

I’m less concerned about that sort of thing because I don’t assume that childcare arrangements happen in a neat and orderly way. There are a lot of different childcare options because people—and their kids—have very different needs. So long as it is safe and legal, I’m not terribly concerned about form so long as it works and people can afford it.

Beyond that, I have a couple specific recommendations for workforce providers based on what I have seen in my past work.

You have to have a real plan for childcare.

Here is a common trap I have seen workforce providers fall into during my time in the federal government. The provider makes a plan for the services they will provide like childcare or transportation that actually ensure people get through their training. The state or federal agencies funding them treat this plan as “proof” that the provider is actually providing these services. When a worker actually needs these services, it turns out they don’t really have a plan—just loose concepts of some agency or community group they’ll call to provide this help.

That’s wishful thinking, not a plan—and it tends to either cost providers—either in lost workers or higher-priced ad hoc solutions.

What should you be doing instead? One, as with any workforce project, you should have a clear idea of who you’re likely to serve. If it’s that mid-career population I talk about above, then you have to know where you’re going if someone needs childcare in clear terms, not loose concepts.

Is it Head Start? Do you have a contact there? What does it take to get in there? How often can you verify the availability of slots if someone qualifies? Is what’s available infant care or pre-school care? The cost difference and licensing requirements for which can be wildly different.

Also: if you’re a funder, I would make sure a workforce project is doing this kind of thinking. If they’re not, they’re likely not using your money as well as they could be—and may be costing you the people you intend to help.

You can do much better than just vouchers.

Think about the nature of the problem: there isn’t enough childcare and the childcare that is available is too expensive. So are you really helping a worker by giving them a voucher and letting them figure it out on their own?

I’ll be frank here: I have seen some organizations insist upon vouchers to a degree that I think it’s about making finding care the worker’s problem, not theirs. This is another place where I would encourage funders to want to see better plans. Is the voucher really the most effective approach? Or is there something the organization can do that works better and takes some of the weight off a worker who needs childcare help and is training for a new job?

Build training that is parent friendly.

One way to avoid running into the brick wall of childcare costs: not forcing parents to pay them.

Last week, The New York Times reported that a fifth of college students have kids, and 43 percent attend community colleges. That means that if you’re a community college, and you’re planning all your trades or nursing courses around 20 year olds, you might be costing yourself students.

Within reason (and the law), I think community colleges and other training providers can build more parent-friendly programs. That includes avoiding scheduling at times that will be difficult for some parents to make—no all-important trainings at 3 p.m. on a Tuesday, for example—and building in supports like childcare when things like night classes are the only logistical option.

FYSA: The House bill on labor and education dropped on Labor Day.

I’ll have more tomorrow for paid subscribers after markup this afternoon at 5 p.m. Big takeaways at a glance, with the caveat that this bill looks… slippery, let’s say:

• Halving Job Corps spending. Precisely, it appears.

• Apparently eliminating the entirety of Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act formula dollars for youth, as well as the National Farmworkers Jobs Program and Senior Community Service Employment Program.

• Preserving most of America’s federal workforce programs and not adopting the Trump blob grant plan—at the cost of some awfully vital organs in the American workforce system.

I’ll have any corrections in tomorrow’s edition after I sit through markup. As a reminder, the Senate version of this bill restores most workforce programs to 2024 funding levels and doesn’t, you know, apparently kill one of the core four programs of the American workforce system.

I don’t know what to be skeptical of as yet, and the House tends to more closely track the Administration. But I’ll also note that this doesn’t align with House Republican calls to fully restore Job Corps. Something has to give. I would bet the House Republicans, but it’s a whole lot easier to call for Job Corps to end when there isn’t a center in your district, I have noticed.

Card subject to change.

Well, I guess I’ll be back tomorrow, unpacking whatever the House is up to for paid subscribers. I’ll also have more analysis in Friday’s edition of THE MONEY.

Next Tuesday, I have a fun interview with someone who I have been hoping to talk to for a while about many of the things you read about here in JOBS THAT WORK.

Depending on various legislative calamities, I also have a new semi-regular feature on how to actually build good workforce policies and get people to support them.

1. Future newsletter, but take a look at the study I linked above and what it found about remote work, performance, and retention. Part of why I have become so skeptical of the “skills gap” is that I’m not sure that some employers are doing everything they can to keep talent. If you’re mandating people come into the office five days a week to have the same all-Zoom meetings because your managers have object-permanence issues, I have doubts that the real problem is a nationwide skilling deficit.

2. Near as I can tell, the Trump Administration’s current answer on childcare is a combination of “Why doesn’t a relative do it?” and pushing more parents (and by parents we mean women) to stay at home. Or to put things in a very constructive way: the White House is not terribly serious on this issue, and I wouldn’t expect any real solutions—or solution finding—during this administration.

3. As I understand them, the Trump Administration’s workforce priorities seem to disregard this population and favor young people and workers who have office jobs. As I have written quite a bit about this year, there is a vein of congressional thinking that these are cheaper and easier populations to train than the people the workforce system currently serves.

I think this is another feelings-not-facts situation. The focus on young people over lower-income adults overestimates the ease and effectiveness of trying to get younger people to think about the rest of their professional lives, which some can struggle to do because they don’t have a frame of reference. And unless I have missed some breaking news, people who already have jobs also have kids—and middle-class office workers, envisioned in some MAGA minds as tomorrow’s factory hands, might expect that you’ll pay for childcare as an incentive to help them train for a new field.