El Paso Matters recently convened regional leaders at the El Paso Forward summit to face a hard truth: our population is aging, our birth rate is declining, and school districts are watching enrollment slide as our future workforce shrinks.
What didn’t make it onto that conversation is a lever sitting in plain sight: access to quality, affordable childcare. It’s both a driver of that demographic strain and one of the fastest tools we have to respond to it.
I think of a family when I hear “demographic forecast.” Close friends recently found out they were expecting, and did what many soon-to-be parents do: started looking for childcare early.
It’s a dual-income household with a solid combined salary. They used a checklist to find the best fit near their home. The answer surprised them: not many centers near their home, and the best option they found ran $365 a week for infant care, about $1,500 a month…