Carolina Forward is releasing new policy recommendations to make childcare more affordable and accessible across North Carolina. The new report, Raising Up Carolina: Making Childcare Work Again for North Carolina Families, outlines a bold but practical roadmap for addressing North Carolina’s growing child care crisis. It was developed by Meytal Barak, an early childhood systems leader and consultant based in Durham, NC, with more than 25 years of experience in nonprofit and public sector roles.
North Carolina faces a serious childcare capacity shortage. The state’s childcare ecosystem has too few workers, too little money, and makes it hard to integrate and acknowledge the practical, community-based options that many households already rely on.
A System Under Strain
For decades, North Carolina was recognized as a national leader in early childhood education. Initiatives like the Abecedarian Project and Smart Start helped establish the state as a model for innovation and investment in young children. But today, that leadership is at risk.
Across the state, families struggle to find available child care. Rural communities face provider shortages and long travel distances. Urban areas continue to experience child care deserts despite strong demand. Providers are closing classrooms because they cannot find staff, and families are finding themselves on growing waitlists for assistance.
The consequences extend far beyond individual households. Child care shortages limit workforce participation, reduce economic productivity, and undermine children’s readiness for school. When parents cannot find affordable care, they are often forced to reduce work hours, leave jobs altogether, or make difficult financial sacrifices.
North Carolina now faces a critical choice: either continue managing a declining system or make the investments necessary to rebuild capacity and meet the needs of a growing state.
Pillar One: Incorporate More Providers
The report’s first recommendation is to rethink where child care can be delivered.
Too often, policy discussions focus exclusively on large child care centers. But families already rely on a much broader ecosystem that includes family child care homes, family-friend-neighbor care, small community-based sites, and shared-service networks. An estimated 64% of North Carolina children under six receive care in family, friend, and neighbor settings.
The report recommends expanding support for licensed home-based providers, modernizing zoning rules that prevent child care from operating in residential neighborhoods, creating pathways for small “micro-centers,” and investing in shared services that help providers manage administrative costs. These approaches can help expand access faster and more affordably than relying solely on large-scale facility development.
Pillar Two: Higher Pay and More Pathways to Employment
No child care system can function without educators.
Today, North Carolina child care workers earn an average of just over $15 per hour, far below what many families need to support themselves. Not surprisingly, turnover has reached unsustainable levels, with 38% of child care teachers leaving their positions in a single year.
When educators leave, classrooms close. When classrooms close, families lose access.
The report recommends creating stronger compensation systems, expanding the successful Child Care WAGE$ program statewide, and investing in workforce development programs such as apprenticeships and Child Care Academies. These investments are not simply workforce policies; they are essential capacity-building strategies that directly increase access to care.
Pillar Three: Cost-Informed Provider Reimbursement
At the center of the crisis is a simple reality: child care is expensive for families but still underfunded for providers.
The average annual cost of infant care in North Carolina now exceeds $12,000 per year. For many families, that rivals the cost of college tuition. Yet even at those prices, providers often struggle to cover operating costs and offer competitive wages.
The report calls for moving toward cost-informed subsidy reimbursement, establishing a statewide reimbursement floor to reduce geographic disparities, leveraging philanthropic investment to support innovation, and recognizing child care as essential economic infrastructure.
The stakes are enormous. Researchers estimate that child care shortages cost North Carolina’s economy more than $5.6 billion annually through lost productivity, workforce disruptions, and reduced economic activity. Investing in child care should be viewed no differently than investing in roads, broadband, or energy systems.
A Defining Moment for North Carolina
North Carolina has already shown what is possible when state leaders make early childhood a priority. The question now is whether policymakers will build on that legacy or allow the state’s child care infrastructure to continue eroding.
The future workforce of North Carolina is already here. It is growing up in homes, family child care settings, classrooms, and early learning environments across the state today.
By focusing on capacity where care happens, who provides it, and how it is financed North Carolina has an opportunity to once again become a national leader in early childhood education while strengthening families, communities, and the economy for generations to come.
