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(alert music) (bell rings) - Hello, and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

I'm Dan Moulthrop I'm the chief executive here also a proud member.

Today's March 5th, you're with another virtual City club Forum and we're live from the studios of our public media partner in 90.3 WCPN ideastream.

It is hard to believe it's been almost a year of this and we're deeply grateful to ideasstreams partnership to ideastream for their partnership and support.

Regular listeners and audience members are likely noticing we've been focusing a lot on workforce development at the City Club, Friday Forum.

Last week, we presented a conversation specifically about advancing racial equity in hiring and access to job and training opportunities.

Today we're taking a look at a workplace crisis that has come into stark relief over the last year.

Apart from COVID itself, the illness and the deaths, one of the most difficult parts of the last year has been the trade-offs so many parents have been making every day between their own professional obligations and their family obligations.

If you wanted to demonstrate the value of childcare you couldn't design anything more effective than a pandemic that forces all of us and our children to shelter in place and for us to work from home remotely and our children to do school remotely on laptops.

This last year, parents have exited the workforce in droves, of course, many of them women and this is unsurprisingly another workforce equity issue.

According to the National Women's Law Center more than 2.3 million women have left the workforce since a year ago bringing their labor participation rates to depths not seen since 1988.

Whether job losses have been the result of layoffs or choices in which family priorities prevail.

The longterm implications of this are staggering.

When you stop to think of them.

The lack of high quality affordable childcare and early childhood education has been a barrier to women's employment and advancement for decades.

Now, if current trends are left unaddressed we really do risk exacerbating existing inequities and inequalities and reversing decades of progress toward the creation of an inclusive economy for women and people of color.

So let me introduce our Friday forum speakers.

Bishara Addison is the Senior Manager of Policy and Strategic Initiatives for Towards Employment which is a 42 year old workforce development organization placing more than 600 individuals in full-time employment every year many of whom are returning citizens returning from the criminal justice system.

Also joining us is Katie Kelly, Executive Director for PRE4CLE.

PRE4CLE is a bit younger it was founded in 2014 and works on Cleveland's plan to expand access to high-quality preschool for families across Cleveland.

We will talk with them about how we can build a resilient childcare and early childhood education system, support the broader workforce, especially for working women and spur economic vitality here in Northeast Ohio.

If you have questions, join us, text your questions 3305415794.

The number again is 3305415794.

You can also tweet your questions at the City Club and we'll work them in, Bishara Addison, Katie Kelly welcome to the City Club of Cleveland.

- [Katie] Hi, Dan it's great to be here.

- It is wonderful to see you.

- [Katie] Thanks for having us.

- It's wonderful to see you both to a fantastic City Club members as well as important leaders in this community.

I wanted to ask you both to help us just understand this issue beyond what I laid out in the introduction.

Why is childcare such a vital workforce issue?

Bishara I can we start with you?

- [Bishara] Sure and I'll start by saying that childcare is what we call a two generational support system.

So it allows parents the ability to work and it provides an early learning setting that prepares children to be on track for school.

And so when we think about having a recovery and also just future prosperity broadly, that it depends on having working parents recycle into our economy and parents, working parents depend on childcare.

So as you noted that, you know, there's more than 2 million women that have dropped out of the labor force and just so happens that more than 1/3 of those parents, which are mostly women have yet to return to those jobs.

So if we're serious about economic recovery we also have to make sure that childcare systems are in place so that parents can do that work.

And we find at Towards Employment that individuals who are looking to get back into the workforce they are often challenged by not being able to persist through re-skilling and up-skilling efforts or finding new work, because there is a childcare crisis.

- Katie Kelly, can you put some stats to this for us?

- [Katie Kelly] Yeah, so, I mean, I think it's really important to think about what this moment is telling us related to all the functions that childcare plays in our economy specifically for women as you and Bishara have highlighted and also for children.

And it really is a two generational workforce issue supports the workforce we have right now.

And it also supports children to be ready for school to be successful in school and there's mountains of research that speak to that.

And then hopefully one day, you know, go on to have the skills they need to participate in the workforce as adults.

And so, you know, when we think about what we're losing, you know, I think there's a lot of hesitancy sometimes among policymakers and others when they think about what is the price tag for supporting childcare and that's really what's holding us back.

But when we think about what we're losing by not having that support, I mean it's to the tune of $57 billion per year as a nation we're losing because of lost productivity and work for our revenue because parents are not able to participate in the workforce to fully participate and overwhelmingly that's an issue for women and especially for women of color.

And so there is a lot of intersection here between what is important for women, what is important for our economy and how do we best support children and families to be successful at the same time.

- When you say $57 billion a year and lost productivity is an important number I wanna come back to that.

But when we look at Cuyahoga County, how many, what do we know about how many women or parents broadly are excluded from the workforce because of a lack of access to childcare?

- [Katie Kelly] Yeah so in Cuyahoga County right now, and when we think about how childcare support is structured in our country, we have a federal system that's called The Childcare and Development Block Grant that provides black grants to states.

And then states can sort of decide within some parameters how those funds are distributed.

So in Ohio, we have decided as a state to actually really cap our eligibility for childcare to very low level, it's actually lower than, it's the second lowest in the nation.

And so we have that limit at 130% of poverty, which is it's not a lot of money.

And so when we think about what are families making above that, as for example, a 200% of poverty a family of four is making $53,000 a year.

So when you have one or two children in childcare that can eat up 30 to 40% of your income.

So we're saying we should expand that.

And we think that there's about 34,000 families in Cuyahoga County above that threshold that the state has said that still desperately need those childcare supports that aren't receiving them.

- We're talking with Katie Kelly of PRE4CLE and Bishara Addison of Towards Employment about the childcare crisis in Ohio, in Cuyahoga County, actually across the nation it's a major stumbling block or obstacle for economic growth and as part of our workforce development series, something we've been really focused on the last few months.

If you have questions about the role childcare plays in the economy and in workforce development please text your question to 3305415794 that's 3305415794 or if you're on Twitter you can tweet it at the City Club and we will work it into the program.

I received an a note just really quickly if you're watching on the live stream that they're having a little bit of trouble hearing some of us, if you wanna turn on your radio, we're on 90.3 WCPN ideastream.

So you can find us there as well.

So, you said 30,000 families in Cuyahoga County are being kind of held up in some fashion in terms of their own professional growth or participation in the workforce because of lack of access to childcare.

Bishara Addison when you think about the families that you and your colleagues at Towards Employment work with what is it, paint that picture for us a little bit like, what does that actually mean in someone's life and what's the long-term impact for that person and long-term impact for the economy?

- [Bishara Addison] Sure and my colleagues at Towards Employment are seeing a number of different issues as it relates to childcare.

Number one, we know that there is fewer daycare slots right now.

We already didn't have enough high quality seats just in in pre-K. And we didn't have enough childcare before the pandemic but it's been exacerbated because of the pandemic.

The second is that when parents don't have strong daycare in place that is one of the first barriers we have to remove so that the individuals we're serving and the parents we're serving can actually enroll in some technical training programs or even get a job.

We know that parents rely on childcare providers that are often kind of family based.

And some of the challenges around that is that when you have family based supports which are wonderful, it also creates some inconsistency in the availability of that childcare in the longterm.

And so we often have parents that will either not take a job because of a childcare as a barrier and not having access to quality childcare or having to take a shift that's not ideal or having to change work because they are choosing employment that is more accessible to the childcare options that they know are available.

And so from a workforce perspective and from some of the experiences that my colleagues see our parents are making choices often dependent on whether they have access to childcare or not.

- When we're talking about this too Katie Kelly could you help us understand exactly the sorts of things that we're talking about here?

So where there's a sort of zero to three or birth to three or four years old kind of childcare provider and then there's early childhood education.

And then, the child becomes the school-aged child.

So most of the day is taken care of but then we still need potentially additional care for those children because the school day is significantly shorter than our work days are.

- [Katie Kelly] Yeah.

Yeah that's an important point.

So I think, you know, sort of defining what we mean when we talk about childcare.

And certainly I think there's a sort of broader definition, which is all the things you just talked about.

There are childcare centers, there are headstart centers, which certainly serve an early education function, but also function as a childcare provider.

There are preschool programs in schools and other places.

And then when we think about it more broadly what children and families need from birth to age 13 which is typically when we think of them aging out of a childcare situation, there is afterschool, before school care, all of those things.

So certainly all of those contribute to the issue of supporting families to be in a workplace and also have children in a safe and enriching environment.

But I think the main function of what we're talking about is what we think of as more traditionally the childcare system that happens in centers.

It can also happen in people's homes, but it's licensed, it's regulated by the state and often supported by the state in different ways, along the lines of improving quality and other things.

And that's what families generally get a subsidy to attend that sort of formal licensed setting.

- Right now the legislature is kind of working with the governor's budget.

There's a process that is that we're at the early stages of now that continues through until roughly May or June, what are you hoping?

What is in there right now for this and what are you hoping to change?

- [Katie Kelly] So you know Governor DeWine has really made this one of his priorities along with issues along the lines of early childhood health and mental health and child protective services.

I think we haven't seen the gains that we hope to see as far as things like what we discussed earlier, you know how many families are eligible, what is that income threshold for childcare eligibility for support, for a subsidy.

In this budget, it does move up slightly but what we would really like to see is move more towards that 150% to 200% of poverty where we're getting families closer to if not a living wage, they're not spending 30 to 40% of their income, which is already, you know, it's a difficult income to support a family.

And so, you know, taking away some of that burden allowing mothers and other parents to get into the workforce, we also wanna see, you know and we haven't talked a lot yet about the importance of quality and what that means for childcare, but things like making sure the teachers are able to access education that hopefully they're getting compensation that's a little bit more elevated that there's a high quality curriculum those pieces, the state has said some really good goals around that, but we wanna see that continued.

So far It is in the budget but I think people sometimes look at those dollars that are being spent towards the end and saying, do we really need that?

We just need children to be safe and we would argue that, no this is about building that investment for children as well.

- Katie Kelly is the Executive Director of PRE4CLE of also with us is Bishara Addison, Senior Manager of Policy and Strategic Initiatives at Towards Employment.

If you have questions, please text them to 3305415794 or tweet them at the City Club and we'll work them into the program.

And I'm being advised to remind you if you're watching our live stream please just refresh your live stream because we've I think we've resolved some of the issues we were facing before.

When we are talking about this issue Bishara and Katie, how do we compare to the, well let me ask a very clear, an important clarifying question before about like federal poverty level and 200% versus 150% in real dollars what are we talking about?

- [Katie Kelly] So for a family of four 200% of poverty is about $53,000 a year.

And so, you know we're talking about parents who make $15 an hour, for example currently don't qualify for childcare assistance, even though obviously that's not a tremendous amount to support a family on.

And so in real numbers, this isn't, you know, we're not even going towards really what it would probably take to get to a living wage with childcare support.

We're really just trying to lift families out of poverty at this point, but Bishara can speak more to I think what that means for the people that she's serving as they're trying to get into the workforce.

- [Dan] Bishara?

- [Bishara Addison] Yeah I would add to that, that when we think about childcare as a profession, one of the challenges is that many of those workers, they themselves actually are at 200% below the federal poverty level.

So we know that, you know, the childcare worker makes roughly $20,000 a year and that we would consider that a low wage.

So it averages about between 950 to 1050 an hour.

And so when we think about that, it's really difficult to actually attract a talent pipeline for childcare.

And so we have kind of this compounding issue of many individuals that we're talking about that are trying to reenter the economy may not be making $15 an hour particularly at a starting job.

And then the childcare workers themselves also are 200% below the federal poverty level.

- Below 200% of the poverty level or yeah.

Significantly, or just barely making it or getting to the poverty level itself.

Well, how do we compare to surrounding states in terms of the thresholds for these sort of subsidies?

- [Katie Kelly] So, you know, we're really far behind and I mean I think that's something that we haven't grappled with as a state, but when we look at just the surrounding states we're well behind states, even states such as Kentucky and West Virginia, as far as the number of families that are able to access childcare, then when we look at the nation as a whole, we're you know, 49th, and this is, you know, I think it's-- - I'm sorry lemme just, let's just say, you said we're 49th?

- [Katie Kelly] 49th yeah 49th as far as families who are able to access childcare assistance.

- That's sort of shocking.

- [Katie Kelly] It is shocking and it's something that we talk about a lot and certainly try to talk to policymakers about that.

But I think there is not a broad awareness about how that is impacting our economy really deeply.

And you know, of course we come at this as PRE4CLE from a standpoint of wanting children to have an excellent early education and wanting families to have that support.

But even when you set that aside which are really important parts of this system when we think about what that does to our economy to our competitiveness as a state, you know we talk a lot about attracting people to Ohio, keeping young workers in Ohio, but we forget about this whole part of the system of when you have a child and this is not just an issue.

And I think this is important too when we look at how families struggled to find affordable quality childcare it deeply impacts low income families but it is certainly not exclusive to low-income families.

There are many families who are struggling with that issue across the whole income range.

And so, you know, when we think about wanting to be and there's a lot of focus on being competitive as a state, keeping people here, drawing people here all of those things depend on, we know quality of life elements and childcare is a huge part of that.

That we're just not, we're not grappling with as a state.

- It's really interesting too because we tell ourselves a story about Ohio and about Cleveland as being a very family-friendly place a place where you can raise kids and all of that.

And it's sort of like what we're talking about is like, you know, it's great for the middle-class, but we're not saying that it's really actually great for everybody.

And it is, there's an economic case that I think that perhaps ought to be made.

I mean, if we were to subsidized childcare up to 200% of the federal poverty level, Bishara Addison, what would be the impact on in terms of economic growth and tax revenue for our cities and our communities?

- [Bishara Addison] And I think that's one of the best recommendations for in the near term on how we can address the childcare crisis is actually increasing somebody's subsidies.

And then also thinking about how we maybe adjust the childcare tax credit but it would have a significant impact.

We know in this pandemic workers of color are overrepresented in many of the kind of lower wage positions that were most vulnerable to layoffs because of the pandemic.

And so actually being able to get these workers access to quality childcare is gonna bring many of those workers back to work.

The Federal Reserve alongside with the US Chamber of Commerce actually looked at some manufacturers who reported that childcare related absences are a key reason that families are struggling and struggling to at least increase output on assembly lines.

And also that, you know families are worried about the lack of childcare how that impacts their employment and income security.

And so if we're able to do this better what we'll see are more workers coming back in into employment into their economy.

And it'll also have a direct impact on workers of color.

- Are we prepared to do this better I mean, with the impact of the pandemic we know that about midway through the summer many childcare centers were struggling to remain open because so many families were simply staying home on lockdown and it wasn't necessarily the safest thing to bring your children to a setting, to a congregate childcare setting.

And do we have the capacity?

Do we have the sort of infrastructure Katie Kelly to restart this sector?

- [Katie kelly] You know, we are still struggling with that as many sectors are.

Early childhood is different from schools and that you cannot and should not put masks on young children who are primarily you know, the folks that are in childcare settings.

And so, and as anyone with a young child or who has experienced with young child knows you also can't really encourage social distancing.

It's not really how young children interact or should interact.

And so, you know, our system has compensated for that.

I think, as Bishara mentioned earlier by having less children in settings in order to have you know, try to maintain some of those safety standards for teachers and staff but that has put our system at a lower overall across the state, across the nation.

So, you know, what do we need to do to come back from that we really need to focus on what are the safety elements that we need.

Luckily, vaccinations just opened up to childcare, teachers and staff, so that will really help push us forward.

But also things like PPE, making sure they have funding for supplies and making sure, you know the state did provide some sort of bridge funding during this time to help offset the cost of having those lower numbers.

We need to continue that until we get to the point where we can reopen, but really focusing on what do we need, what do childcare programs need during this time to stay intact so that they can stay open and not face permanent closure?

What do they need to be safe?

And then moving forward how do we support them as they reopen so that we can get families back into those settings safely?

- So funding essentially then is needed on both ends both as a subsidy for parents and families at a certain threshold and then additionally, on the side of the provider to ensure that, that they can remain open but then ideally Bishara, you mentioned earlier the low wages that are paid that if you want to create more seats in childcare centers and better labor force to staff those centers, you need to pay more.

- [Bishara Addison] So, I mean, that's the compounding nature and really the intersectionality of kind of this issue around childcare is that we both need childcare for individuals to go back to work and broadly even before the pandemic this was a need.

And at the same time, there is a workforce talent issue within the childcare space.

And so something Katie will talk about at least she's talked about with me, is how we need to kind of professionalize the field of childcare.

If you have low wages in childcare that also to work in the field you have to have some post-secondary education.

It means that you're asking individuals to basically enter economically into a poverty trap because you're working with individuals who aren't, there isn't a lot of economic mobility within that career pathway and there's a ceiling to how much you can make even if you get to a point where your wages do rise.

And so we both have to increase the number of seats and in order to do that you also have to have more individuals working in the field.

And so we also have to address the wages and the salary of those who are working in the field.

So those two go hand in hand.

- And at this point is there a comprehensive, identifiable professional development pipeline or strategy in place for childcare providers, Katie Kelly - [Katie Kelly] I mean, there definitely is a pipeline.

I think we are always working on both locally and at the state level, how do we refine that pipeline?

How do we make it more accessible?

For example, we've been working on several years on the idea of a bachelor degree program that could happen in a center versus making teachers sort of carve out time out of work to go to a college setting.

How do we really fashion it around their schedule and their needs?

So things like that need to happen more and more how do we utilize, you know their time in the classroom as part of their education.

And a lot of that is happening.

And a lot of that professionalization has happened over the past 20 years.

I think the big disconnect, you know we've worked really hard, especially Cuyahoga County.

We have a tremendous amount of teachers in these settings that are bachelor degree teachers that are still making 11 to $12 an hour with very little benefits as well.

And so there is that disconnect, you know between what we're asking teachers to do and they've done it and how the system funds and rewards and recognizes their work.

And so, you know, the answer to that is multifaceted, but at the end of the day, you know, as a state, as a nation putting the funds into that to have and recognize and maintain that professional workforce and that's important for those individuals, of course it's also really important for children to have those teachers be in those classrooms over time, make those relationships and connections with children.

That's a big part of what we consider to be a quality program as well.

So it's really both of those things.

- Katie Kelly is Executive Director of PRE4CLE and she's one of our two panelists today.

We're also speaking with Bishara Addison, Senior Manager of Policy and Strategic Initiatives for Towards Employment.

And we're talking today at the City Club Friday Forum about the state of workforce development with respect to the crisis in childcare.

It's more about the state of childcare, the crisis in childcare with respect to workforce development.

But these two things go hand in hand.

If you wanna join our conversation with a question for our panelists, please text it to 3305415794.

The number again is 3305415794.

And you can tweet your question at the City Club as well.

If you're on Twitter, tweet it there and we will work it into the program.

Questions are coming in right now.

I would love to know what Bishara and Katie think is holding our region and Ohio up from an all in investing strategy for early childhood education, given the known positive ROI of such an investment.

What's holding us back, Katie Kelly?

- [Katie Kelly] You know, I think truly what's holding us back is that looking at that initial price tag of what it will cost to expand childcare to more families?

And I think policy makers are wary of the long-term ability to pay for something like that.

I think we would argue, and we do argue that the benefit of that, both the human benefit but also the economic benefit will far outweigh any costs that goes in on the front end.

And I think, you know, we just have not had the support at the state level and which is really where a lot of these decisions are made to move that needle.

And what's hard is that we were serving many more families a decade ago.

And so we're not only behind the rest of the nation but we're behind where we were a decade ago as far as families being able to access childcare.

And so, you know, really thinking more broadly about what this means for our system.

I think we need to connect this in our policymakers minds, to the overall economic plan for our communities and for our state.

And when we can do that when we can truly make that connection I think we'll be able to move the needle.

And so that's what we're trying to do here is really help people understand that this is not just a babysitting issue.

This is not just something families need to figure out on their own or maybe companies need to contribute to.

That's great, but this is a bigger, broader fundamental issue that our community as a whole needs to come together to figure out and to make sure that we're getting right or else we're never gonna have the kind of workforce participation and forward movement that we wanna see especially among the women in our workforce.

- Bishara Addison what do you think is holding us back?

- [Bishara Addison] To that question there's complexity to this policy challenge.

It's a policy challenge worthy of elevation hence why we have a Friday forum about this particular issue, but the complexity to it makes it hard to untangle and you can look at it from a number of different lenses.

One, there is how do we fund or better fund publicly supported childcare.

So that's like one issue and where does that funding come from?

And in what areas of the budget, what funding source is it state funding?

Is it federal funding?

Is it a local match?

So addressing that particular issue then the second is how do we for publicly funded childcare increase wages of those who are working in the field to better attract talent you've got to also train up that talent.

And so that's less of a policy issue and more of a practice issue.

And it's gonna, the accessibility of that training is gonna vary by community.

We're fortunate in kind of our region that we have some quality programs but that's not the case across all of Ohio.

And then we also have to better understand kind of what are the childcare options that parents are tapping into.

So we have parents that are tapping into family supports and that's often uncompensated or doesn't exist within the policy system but it's still a possibly a barrier to employment.

If folks feel more comfortable with a family member than they do a childcare center, particularly as, you know individuals are still not vaccinated.

And so addressing each one of those lanes requires a different policy lever and requires a different kind of investment.

And I think that's part of the challenge of why we haven't been able to address this yet at the same time.

Part of the reason why we wanna elevate this now is that there's an urgent need to untangle this kind of policy issue.

- But to be clear, the first step that you're advocating for is subsidies to parents and families so that they can pay for childcare and get themselves to work.

That's the first step?

- [Bishara Addison] Absolutely I think right now that is a near term should be a permanent solution but it's the near term solution that at least helps families, particularly that are in lower wage positions have access to childcare.

Groundwork Ohio did a study in 2019 and they found that, you know, infant care costs for at least minimum wage workers are about 53% of their income.

So imagine 50% of your income is going towards childcare alone.

And so that doesn't take into consideration the impact of the pandemic.

It doesn't take into consideration job loss and rising unemployment rates but if you're spending a significant share it makes it very difficult for you to at least have these trade-offs with other basic needs that you're also trying to provide for your children and family.

And so increasing the wages for workers and then at the same time, giving more subsidies to parents, those are some near term solutions that can help us accelerate our recovery.

- Another question for both of you the pandemic has given us a unique opportunity to make real change when it comes to early childhood education what are the long-term implications if we don't take advantage of this opportunity and don't get early childhood education right?

And I'll just add to that.

Perhaps one of you could also talk about the Perry Preschool study which I know is often quoted in conversations around policy conversations around this issue.

Katie Kelly, could you start?

- [Katie Kelly] So a lot of the work that Cleveland and other communities have done around early education really has sprung from a greater understanding of all of the brain development that happens during the first five years of life.

And our understanding of that science has developed so much over the past several decades, but essentially we know now that so much of the foundation of the brain sort of when you think about it as building a house the foundation is all built in those first five years and everything that's built on top of that afterwards will either be strong or either be shaky based on what happens during those first five.

And so that's, you know and so many things contribute to that and certainly the children of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County also have to contend with a lot of other traumatic events in their life that are part of that first five years.

And so how we provide an excellent enriching early education, both through supporting families to do that at home, but also in these formal settings of our children getting that kind of enrichment that's gonna get them ready for kindergarten.

And we see that happening in our own programs and PRE4CLE we track children who have that experience versus children who don't.

And, you know, we see it's almost a 20 point differential as far as children being ready for kindergarten if they've been able to have those high quality experiences.

And then we see that connection, you know continue as they go into third grade and beyond they're much more likely to reach third grade proficiency which impacts their learning and development all the way through high school graduation through their ability to be a successful adult and engage in the workforce.

And so, you know, I mean, other studies have, you know, we're looking at what other studies have shown us like Perry Preschool, which has tracked children, a cohort of children starting in the early 60s, in Michigan all the way through their adulthood down.

And we can see, you know some of the things that you might expect to see a greater achievement in school, but also things like less participation in the criminal justice system more ability to, you know, stronger, less likely to divorce, more likely to have successful careers and greater earnings.

And all of those things have equal tremendous return on investment.

You know, when we think about dollar for dollar what that study and other studies have replicated is that it's about a $13 return for every dollar put into those children.

And so that's really what we're focusing on here is how do we make sure families have what they need but also that children are getting that kind of experience because if we do miss that first five years, it's not that children can't certainly benefit from education and other experiences after that.

It's just much more difficult for them to have that, that stability that they need in order to be successful later on.

And so we really wanna get that right during that first five years for them.

- Bishara Addison?

- [Bishara Addison] Yeah I would echo Katie sentiments.

And I mean, the key takeaway here is that investments in early childhood have a direct connection to adults in their success in post-secondary and in the workforce system.

And we could also tell you if we don't have those investments we know what the results will be.

I wouldn't say that there's a causational effect between early childhood and child quality childcare programming in the criminal justice system.

But we know that strong early childhood programming has an impact on children being on track to read by third grade.

But we also know if we look at like local data and the literacy cooperative has done some work around this that we have an adult literacy crisis, and many of those adults were failed by previous systems and were not on track to read by third grade.

And so the lack of quality programming has yielded a need for academic remediation.

So if you look at Tri-C they have academic remediation programs.

At Towards Employment we will do kind of academic refreshers to make sure that those that we are serving particularly those were transitioning into technical training programs like in manufacturing have the academic remediation necessary to be successful in those programs.

And most jobs in this region, the growing jobs in our region do require maybe less than a four year degree but definitely some post-secondary education.

We would call those either opportunity jobs or middle skill jobs.

And so there's a definitely a direct correlational line between early childhood, quality early childhood programming and the results you'll see 10 to 15 years later in our adult workforce system.

- It seems very clear to me that given what we've been talking about on in Friday forums over the past few months regarding workforce development that there is no opportunity right now for a family to or for a mother to get into the job training program that she wants to if her children cannot be cared for safely.

And so the opportunity what we risk as a community it seems is that that individual doesn't get into the training program, doesn't get the job, doesn't start paying taxes, isn't able to provide for her family and then we compound that over a population.

And that calculus seems pretty evident.

Katie Kelly, you've mentioned a couple of times we're 49th in the US in accessibility to childcare.

What can we learn from the communities and states that are doing this well besides just do it?

- [Katie Kelly] Right, so I just go ahead and do.

You know, I think what we see in those communities is greater participation in the workforce.

All the things we've been talking about.

And, you know, I think that they have better integrated childcare as an economic support.

And you know, what we've seen over the past several decades is that the cost of childcare has nearly doubled while wages have not.

Obviously we just have remained fairly stagnant and that's an equity issue across many parts of the workforce.

But when we think about childcare and, you know private childcare for one child the average is $10,000 per year for one child.

And then when you have multiple children in that system and your wages are remaining stagnant, that does force and I think Bishara talked about this earlier forces especially women to drop out of the workforce or forego opportunities, forego a higher paying job with more hours or a job, maybe with a different schedule, because they can't afford to change their childcare situation.

And so, you know, that has caused in areas where there is less access to childcare.

It is just stagnated women's ability to participate in the workforce.

And until we deal with that structural need, you know we want families to be participating in the workforce.

We want to be generating that activity.

Certainly a lot of women want to be doing that for themselves and their family.

But if there simply is no option around how to do that.

And if childcare costs more than what they'll be making by going to work then the calculus doesn't add up.

And so until we can deal with that structural issue you know, we just sort of welcomed women into the workforce but didn't deal with any of that.

And I think to your earlier question of why isn't this happening I think there still is that element of mom figure it out.

You know, this is your personal responsibility to figure that out when really it is our community's responsibility to figure out how do we have the most productive workforce we can have?

How do we have the best economy we can have?

And what role does childcare play in that?

And we haven't answered that question yet.

- Well, that brings to mind another question from one of our list listeners, which is specifically what are lawmakers saying to you as you're advocating at the state legislature and you're saying this is important.

What are you hearing from lawmakers of both parties?

- [Katie Kelly] I mean, what we hear is, we know this issue is important.

So, I've been advocating for this issue for a greater part of 16 years now.

And I think, you know there is widespread understanding much more widespread understanding that early childhood is important, that the childcare is important, but it is that you know how can we afford this?

There isn't that sort of longer term thinking yet about and this is I'm talking more at the state level.

I think at the local level we have policymakers who really understand that this is a fundamental issue and I've put a lot of local resources both through the school district the county, certainly private foundations and others who supported our work, the work of investing in children at the county and many others individually to expand and support early education childcare included.

I think at the state level we're still grappling with that front end investment.

And how do we get to that point of understanding all the things that we're gonna get out of this in the longterm?

And I do think it's frustrating for us because you know, many people worry that during this pandemic, our state budget would shrink.

You know, we would see decreased revenues and that hasn't happened.

We're actually seeing an increase in state revenues despite all that we're experiencing.

So when we look at that growth we think let's put that growth into something like this that can really propel be an engine for our recovery.

And that's the message that we're putting out there.

Certainly we have policymakers who are fully on board with that but I think we don't have the majority yet who can say, yes that's something that's important for our recovery and for our long-term growth as a state.

- Bishara?

- [Bishara Addison] I'll say federally we see the Ohio Workforce Coalition is really composed of the Ohio Delegation of the National Skills Coalition.

And recently we did our virtual congressional meetings which we do every year.

And one of the key takeaways we heard from our congressional officials on both sides of the aisle in Ohio is that they do understand the need for childcare and that they have a number of constituent calls around women dropping out of the workforce or quitting their jobs because they are grappling with challenges and access to childcare.

And we know that right now Congress is looking at COVID relief package and that with the Biden administration part of his build back better recovery plan includes really improving the care sector both the beginning of life and end of life.

So think about home care workers but also childcare workers and childcare investments.

So we know federally it's a priority on both sides of the aisle.

We heard loud and clear from congressional officers that that childcare is definitely a need.

And so there is a broader awareness and the pandemic has really kind of created a space where could have more constructive conversations around this that we wouldn't have been able to have before because there's a re there's a realization that this is an economic issue.

- [Katie Kelly] I mean, one of the things we look at is the polling around this is incredibly strong.

So we also share with policy makers when we're thinking about how Ohio will support this, you know, more than 3/4 of Ohio if they had polls just this year would support substantially more resources going to the early childhood system, including childcare.

And that's really strong among, you know 77% of suburban voters and older voters and 80% of women.

So when, you know we try to share that with policy makers, you know, this is not something that is just important to Democrats or just important to moms.

This is really broad support among voters who really understand the importance of this issue.

- The Ohio's treasurer Robert Sprog has a program called Results Ohio which is related to perhaps modeled on the pay for success program Cuyahoga County was experimenting with.

And I honestly don't know the current status of the pay for success program that Cuyahoga County was experimenting with, but it's commonly known as social impact bonds.

It's sort of a pay now it's I think of it as sort of a tax increment financing on behavior but that's probably not a useful way to describe it have either of you approached the treasurer's office about support for, you know, about doing this kind of pay for success for this kind, this sort of thing that seems like a perfect case where you put in money now and the results are higher tax revenues in the future.

- [Katie Kelly] We have not specifically approached the treasurer's office.

We certainly work with many other partners in the administration.

I think it's an interesting concept.

I think the challenge with those sorts of projects is who the end, you know the idea is there's an end payer, right?

And so if that's the state I think that's a really interesting concept.

So, I think there's lots of ways to think about funding this and we've certainly looked at different funding streams over the years, you know, different obviously there's lots of issues that have dedicated funding at the local and the state level, but, you know at the end of the day it's what's gonna be able to go to scale because we know what the investment needs to be.

I think it's just having the funds to go to scale but I think those kinds of conversations are always interesting when we think about especially innovative approaches to this work but yeah, we'll call him up, see what he has to say.

- [Bishara Addison] And I think with innovative financing, I think back to our Friday forum last Friday and where you had Amanda cage from the National Fund for workforce solutions and the National Fund has done some great work around creating a job quality framework and supports for childcare is actually a part of that.

And this is a framework that providers can use but also really a tool for employers to think about how they improve job quality.

And so again, from a workforce lens where do employers fall in this conversation?

And the National Fund provides some really great tools for that.

I would also say that giving incentives to employers to have supports for childcare.

So actually tax credits for employers or creating that, allowing that in compensation packages.

So there's gotta be some creative ways we engage who actually is financing this effort.

And one is to be able to give directly to individuals and another is to also create and reward employers for creating better opportunities.

And I'll leave if you don't mind a quote from one of our young adult advisors at Towards Employment we are a site for generation work which is an Annie E Casey Foundation Funded Initiative.

And one of the young adults said, my dream as a parent of three is that employers would have onsite childcare at hospitals.

This is where the individual wanted to work and would subsidize that care, at least until someday our community or country takes that step.

I don't know how parents especially low-income parents really get out of poverty until the high cost of childcare is removed.

My mom helps me now, but that's not the best she gets tired and is not in her best health.

And I don't want employees to treat me badly because I have three kids.

I still want to work and I can't help it if I live in a country that does not treat young people that can do both.

And who do they think will support them when they're old?

So a direct quote from one of our young adult advisors we engage young adults in helping us think through job quality and what it helps what will help young adults 18 to 29 just cycle into the workforce.

And so one of their solutions that they're offering is that there is onsite childcare at their employers.

And so how do we talk with employers about their role in financing this as well?

- Katie Kelly, are there any employers in Northeast Ohio right now offering that kind of benefit?

- [Katie Kelly] There are some employers, I would say only a couple.

We've tried to work more with employers to educate them about how to support and connect their employees even if they aren't providing childcare to connect them to the right resources, to find affordable childcare.

But I certainly think there's a lot of space that we need to carve out for that conversation too there's lots ways that employers can support this.

So having them engaged in the conversation through our chamber and through others who can, connect them more directly to this is, is a really important goal as well.

- Another question and probably what we'll wrap up with here but what is the most transformative action individuals can take right now to address this crisis?

Bishara Addison what's the call to action for listeners?

- [Bishara Addison] A call to action for policy makers.

So call up your state senator or your state representative is to actually increase subsidies for parents and really think about increasing the childcare tax credit.

- Katie Kelly?

- [Katie Kelly] So I have two things I'm gonna achieve.

One is you can follow us at PRE4CLE.org sign up to get our updates and we have lots of calls to action that go out on a regular basis.

And also just news and updates about our work.

The other one is and Bishara mentioned Groundwork Ohio their website is GroundworkOhio.org.

They're a statewide initiative that's working on early education coming up.

They have a couple of virtual forums for people who wanna know more.

The first one is gonna happen coming up really soon.

It's gonna have the governor on speaking about this issue and then people who participate on that are gonna have some really good opportunities to engage further.

So I would say, go on sign up for those virtual forums, get engaged that way.

- Katie Kelly is Executive Director at PRE4CLE.

Bishara Addison, Senior Manager of Policy and Strategic Initiatives for Towards Employment.

Thank you both so much for joining us for this conversation.

- [Katie Kelly] Thank you so much for having us on this was great.

- It's been great to have you both.

- [Bishara Addison] Thank you we appreciate it.

- Our forum today is the Cyrus Eaton Memorial Forum.

Mr. Eaton was a City Club member for more than 60 years joining in 1916, just three years after our founding, he was an innovative businessman.

He built enterprises in several industries, including steel, coal, railroads, lake shipping and finance.

He was also a statesman dedicated to the quest for international friendship, disarmament and peace and we're grateful for the support of the Cyrus Eaton Foundation for making this annual forum possible.

Thanks also to members, sponsors donors and many others who support our mission to create conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

We have three such conversations coming up.

Next week on Tuesday, we'll talk with four leaders working to close the civil justice gap.

Wednesday, we'll talk with a mayoral candidate named Ross DiBello as part of our series with candidates seeking to be the next mayor of Cleveland.

And next Friday, it's our annual high school debate championship.

Please join us for all of these or any of them and you can find out more and see what else is coming up @cityclub.org.

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I'm Dan Moulthrop stay strong.

We'll talk soon.

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