Economy

States work to lift childcare enrollment freezes

Low-income parents are scrambling to find care, and daycares are struggling to stay in business. 
A pair of children look out of the child care center during the grand opening of the Rose on Colfax, a new affordable housing community with a co-located childcare center in the East Colfax neighborhood Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Officials in at least four states — Colorado, Indiana, Maryland and South Carolina — have frozen enrollment in childcare subsidy programs due to a lack of funds, while officials in states including Missouri and Texas are managing long wait lists.

Policymakers in some of those states are now dipping into savings and seeking to raise new revenue in order to serve more low-income families. 

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