The Lemur is publishing a selection of the most original, compelling, and persuasive final op-eds written in Fall 2025’s Public Policy 301: Political Analysis for Public Policy-Making, taught by Dr. Deondra Rose.
North Carolina childcare is in crisis. Geographic inequality in state childcare assistance has parents scrambling for slots, providers burning out, and the state’s economy bleeding billions in lost productivity. Childcare isn’t optional—it’s as essential to society as roads or power grids. North Carolina must fund it like the infrastructure it is.
The problem with North Carolina’s childcare system lies in the General Assembly’s (NCGA’s) subsidy reimbursement system. Childcare reimbursement is part of NC’sChild Care Subsidy program, which provides financial assistance to low-income families to help pay for licensed childcare services. Right now, childcare reimbursement rates are set based on the75th percentile of the market rate in each county, and depend on children’s age, care setting, and program rating. High-quality childcare is costly to provide, no matter the area. However, market rates, and therefore childcare subsidy reimbursements, are lower in rural counties. Childcare programs in low-income and rural counties then receive thousands of dollars less per month than neighboring urban counties, even though they provide similarly high-quality care. This creates drastic geographic inequalities, where more money is allocated to wealthier urban counties, leaving childcare options in lower-income, rural counties underfunded and lacking resources.
Many childcare programs—especially in rural counties—have become financially inviable and shut down. Since February 2020, 65 of North Carolina’s 100 counties have had a net loss of licensed programs. There is currently only space for about 1 in 5 children in NC childcare programs.
The programs that can survive are incentivized to increase their tuition to unaffordable rates. It’s a vicious cycle. The price increases have gotten so bad that the average cost of infant care in North Carolina is more expensive than in-state college tuition.
This childcare crisis is having real, human impacts. As Katie Dukes at EdNC reports, Cassandra Brooks, owner and operator of Little Believer’s Academy, feels like her hands are tied. Brooks won’t increase her tuition costs, because of the unfair implications and because she doesn’t want to lose customers. She has kept her business running with the help of pandemic stabilization grants, intended to support childcare centers as they reopened after the pandemic. Those grants expired at the end of March. Brooks told EdNC that unless something changes this session, she may have to close her childcare center, leaving hundreds of parents without a childcare option.
Some argue that childcare is a private problem that should fall on families, neighborhoods, and churches. However, childcare center closures are not a private problem: they have massive ripple effects, culminating in a weaker state economy. These closures have forced, and will continue to force, many North Carolina parents to leave the workforce because of the lack of care options. Childcare challenges reduced North Carolina’s total economic output by as much as $13.3 billion in 2023. If roads or bridges were collapsing across 65 counties, reducing our economic output by over $13 billion, North Carolina would rush to repair them. Yet as our childcare system—an infrastructure just as important to North Carolina’s economy— crumbles, the NCGA hasn’t taken concrete steps to address the matter.
There is hope, though. In March, Governor Stein created a Task Force on Child Care and Early Education with Executive Order 10. In June, the task force released an interim report acknowledging major barriers in access, affordability, and workforce sustainability that the North Carolina child care system faces. The task force’s report is clear: it is in North Carolina’s best interest to solve this crisis. Our state isn’t living up to its economic potential, because parents must stay home to care for their children.
After the task force, North Carolina should prioritize one of its recommendations to support the essential infrastructure of childcare. The NCGA should enact a statewide subsidy rate floor that ensures every childcare provider, no matter the county, receives at least a minimum reimbursement level that reflects the real cost of care. This floor would level the playing field, stabilizing the system by allowing centers to budget confidently and retain qualified teachers. It would keep classrooms open, strengthen our economy by increasing workforce participation, and reduce inequality by finally giving rural and low-income communities a fair share of state support. Just as we fund roads or bridge access statewide—not by ZIP code—we must fund childcare infrastructure equitably. A rate floor is the equivalent of maintaining the state’s care “roads,” ensuring North Carolina’s families and economy can keep moving.
by Anna Vannoy
