Demand for Texas child care subsidies is skyrocketing

SAN ANTONIO – The San Antonio Express-News reports for the past three decades, working parents in Texas who make below the state’s median income have been eligible for financial help from the government to pay for daycare. But as the cost of raising children has exploded in recent years and the state has moved to force more people to carry out their pregnancies, demand for the subsidies has far surpassed supply. More than 20,000 families in the San Antonio and Dallas regions alone were waiting to access the program as of late last year, the most recent data available. In the 13-county region that includes Harris County, nearly 30,000 families are in line for assistance, with an average wait time of about 14 months, according to Jennifer Starling, manager of child care and financial aid for the Gulf Coast Workforce Board.

“I’ve been in child care for 20-plus years, and I haven’t seen it this long in a very long time,” she said. “It’s hard. I just want to take them all.” The growing wait times have made it difficult for new parents to return to the workforce and further stretched families’ limited budgets, providers say. Texas has done little to help. The state contributes the minimum match amount required to access the federal grant dollars, even as other GOP-led states like Florida and Alabama have ratcheted up their financial support. A report by the First Five Years Fund, a D.C.-based nonprofit, found that the Texas program reaches just 13% of all eligible families. “Without additional state money, we’re only going to see the waitlist continue to grow,” said Cody Summerville, CEO of the Texas Association for the Education of Young Children. The Texas House is considering a proposal this year to add $100 million into the program, enough to cover several thousand new families. The push is being led by state Rep. Armando Walle, a Houston Democrat who tried unsuccessfully in 2023 to get lawmakers on board with a $2 billion boost in funding for child care providers.