Childcare is Becoming Out of Reach for Many Families in Texas

For a growing number of Texas parents, the hardest part of the workday isn't only the job itself — it's finding someone trustworthy to watch their child while they're there. Families across the state are struggling to find affordable, reliable childcare, and in turn, it's hurting the state's economy. 

More than half of the state's 254 counties now qualify as "childcare deserts" — places where families simply cannot find enough licensed care to meet their needs. Karen Hughes White, president and CEO of the Texas Women's Foundation, shared the findings describing a crisis that touches nearly every corner of family life: whether a parent can work, whether a household can pay its bills, and whether a child gets the safe, nurturing care every child deserves.

White broke the problem into three pieces that, together, she says amount to nothing less than a crisis: cost, access, and quality of care. The price tag alone is staggering — center-based infant care in Texas now costs more than $11,000 annually on average, more than a year of in-state college tuition. For many young families just starting out, that's simply not a number they can make work.

A county earns the label "childcare desert" when there are three or more children for every licensed care slot available — and by that measure, over half of Texas falls short, leaving an estimated 111,490 children without access to care within a reasonable driving distance. Families in rural Texas feel this most acutely, where the access gap grows well above the statewide average. 

White told KERA's NTX Now that "women comprise 46% of the workforce here in Texas, but there are key barriers to women's ability to participate fully, consistently, and productively in the workforce that essentially are getting worse." She also noted that women are enrolling in higher education at 1.5 times the rate of Texas men, with population trends pointing toward women making up more than half the state's population by 2040.

White summed up why this matters for the whole state, not just families: "Investing in childcare is not just a social mandate, but it's a market aligned strategy that supports workforce participation, economic resilience, and economic growth." As she put it, "It's an economic infrastructure issue — not a women's issue and not a family's issue."

While policymakers weigh long-term solutions, some communities aren't waiting. In Fort Worth, the Center for Transforming Lives offers free drop-in childcare to single mothers who are enrolled in its job-training and counseling programs. CEO Carol Klocek believes this kind of support — meeting a parent's practical needs so she can build a better future for her family — is a model that schools and employers alike should replicate far more widely. As she told KERA's NTX Now, "We have to be creative about child care. The days of just doing the same old, same old… It's clearly not working. Families are really struggling with the high cost of child care."

The impact of that support is deeply personal. One mother in the program credited the center's free childcare with allowing her to complete a forklift and logistics training program she says she couldn't have finished otherwise. "Without having a job, you're trying to make ends meet, but that extra childcare expense, it's like, okay, now it's a very tight budget," she said.

Stories like hers are a reminder that behind every statistic is a parent trying to do right by their child, and a community that has the power to make that possible. Scripture calls believers to care for the vulnerable and to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:31) — and few needs are more immediate, or more worthy of that love, than helping a parent find safe hands to hold their child while they work to build a stable home.