Quality Child Care Can Grow the Economy

According to the UC Berkeley report "Economic Impacts of Early Care and Education in California" by Jennifer MacGillvary and Laurel Lucia from  August 2011, over 850,000 children in California use child care. The child care industry in California brings in over 5.6 billion dollars annually in receipts.

High-quality child care can grow California's economy by:

• Boosting parent's participation & productivity in the workplace. Quality, stable child care not only enables parents to work, but improves their productivity.
• Improving businesses' bottom lines by reducing absenteeism, reducing turnover, and enhancing productivity.
• Supporting women's careers and earnings. When women exit the workforce, even temporarily, their skills depreciate and they lose seniority- effecting their career opportunities and earning power.
• Quality child care programs support student parents and thereby help create a more skilled workforce.
• Offering a high return on investment.  High-quality child care programs offer society a return on investment of $2.69-$7.16 for every dollar invested. Savings come from a healthier, skilled workforce who had a rich early childhood experience.
• Increasing purchasing power. Quality child care enables parents to fully participate in the workforce increasing their buying power. The use of quality child care creates jobs in the early childhood field. Both the parents and the child care providers have increased buying power, in turn creating more jobs.

Quality early childhood programs create productive, educated workforces with purchasing power AND invests in the future by supporting the strong development of children and future workforces.

Support the field of Early Childhood Education- California's economy depends upon it.