SPOKANE, Wash. – Child care is getting more expensive. A local advocacy organization wants to address that problem for Spokane families.
Priority Spokane has designated childcare as a top policy priority for the next several years.
The group’s board of directors designated childcare as a main focus during a meeting held the week of March 18.
Executive Director Ryan Oelrich believes Priority Spokane will be able to make a positive difference in the next few years.
“Priority Spokane is uniquely positioned to make a measurable difference in Childcare in the next 3 years…With childcare, we have partners who have already stepped up and are ready to get to work on this issue for our region,” Oelrich said.
Childcare takes up an increasingly large percentage of the monthly incomes of young families. According to childcare website Care.com, families spent 24 percent of their incomes on childcare in 2024. The federal government designates affordable childcare as comprising no more than 7 percent of a family’s income.
The challenge extends to the Lilac City, where inflating childcare costs have contributed to a gender disparity in political leadership according to the City of Spokane.
Only 39 percent of Spokane board and commission members are women according to the mayor’s office, which is currently exploring subsidized childcare options to address that gap.
Priority Spokane will create a taskforce to explore policy responses to the issue, and argues that increasing childcare costs are contributing to racial disparities and economic inequality in eastern Washington.
State agencies are also working to address the problem. The Washington Department of Commerce allocated $1.6 million in early learning funding to the Spokane region in early March.
The progressive think tank The Center for American Progress argues that childcare costs are an increasing weight on families due to aggressive wage stagnation over the past three decades, and argue for a stricter tax regime on the wealthiest Americans.
The Cato Institute, a conservative think tank, argues that too many regulations in the childcare industry have restricted the capacity of the free market to keep child care costs low.
Regardless of the potential solutions, conservative and progressive policy experts agree that childcare is a major challenge for families.
