Report: State of Early Care and Education in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, in collaboration with Start Strong PA and Pre-K for PA, released the State of Early Care and Education in Pennsylvania.

About

Pennsylvania’s comprehensive early care and education system spans a child’s formative years, from birth to age five. This report looks deeper at Pennsylvania’s child care and pre-k system complexities and recommends the improvements necessary to ensure the system functions equitably and increases access and affordability for all families in the commonwealth.

Key findings include:

• 68% of young children in Pennsylvania have all available caregivers in the workforce and require external care arrangements.

• On average, costs for infant child care comprise approximately 17.5% of the Pennsylvania median family income.

• In Pennsylvania, the average hourly wage of a child care worker is less than $12.50/hour, which is less than $26,000 annually.

• Only 46% of all child care capacity in Pennsylvania meets high-quality standards, and only 35% of providers serving children under 5 in subsidized child care have achieved high-quality.

• Only 43% of eligible 3- and 4-year-olds in the state participate in high-quality, publicly funded pre-k, leaving over 87,000 without access to a high-quality program.

• Only 23% of all children served in Pre-K Counts and Head Start Supplemental Assistance Programs in Pennsylvania are Non-Hispanic Black, compared to 41% of children identifying as Non-Hispanic White.

Read the full report on the Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children website.