Ohio Must Fix Child Care for the Good of Families and Businesses

By: Lynanne Gutierrez, President & CEO of Groundwork Ohio, and Rick Carfagna, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and Groundwork Ohio Board Member

This op-ed was published in The Columbus Dispatch on Friday, July 31, 2026.

Dis­rup­tions for busi­nesses just keep com­ing. AI. Sup­ply chain issues. Infla­tion. Gas prices. Cyber threats.

But one con­stant chal­lenge is hir­ing and keep­ing tal­ent. Among the biggest bar­ri­ers to solving that prob­lem is the cost and avail­ab­il­ity of qual­ity child care.

The aver­age Ohio fam­ily with two chil­dren spends almost a third – 29% – of its house­hold income on child care. Infant care typ­ic­ally costs $13,000 or more per year. For preschool­ers, the tab is $10,000-plus.

This fin­an­cial real­ity means that for many fam­il­ies, work doesn’t pay. What’s the res­ult? Women par­tic­u­larly drop out or don’t even enter the work­force. Com­pan­ies lose out on excel­lent employ­ees. Absent­ee­ism, turnover and unfilled pos­i­tions cut into profits.

Busi­nesses and com­munit­ies are try­ing all man­ner of ways to attract and retain employ­ees with young fam­il­ies. The Ohio Cham­ber of Com­merce and Ground­work Ohio recently highlighted just some of their cre­at­ive prac­tices in Busi­ness Innov­a­tion in Child Care.

What Ohio com­munit­ies are doing to keep young fam­il­ies

• In Ash­land County, the com­munity came together to build a child care cen­ter at the Ash­land Busi­ness Park, home to 30 busi­nesses that col­lect­ively employ 1,200 work­ers.

• In Han­cock County, the com­munity cre­ated a fund to help fam­il­ies who earn too much to qual­ify for state-sub­sid­ized child care to pay for this expense.

• In Lick­ing County, Illu­min­ate USA cre­ated 12 hour shifts, schedul­ing employ­ees two days on, two days off, fol­lowed by a work week of three days on, three days off. Employ­ees typ­ic­ally work just 15 days per month.

• In Muskingum County, the local edu­ca­tional ser­vice cen­ter opened preschools, includ­ing one in Zanes­ville that will serve up to 160 chil­dren.

• In Stark County, the Alli­ance Employ­ment Prom­ise provides up to $200 per month per child for child care costs, paid for by par­ti­cip­at­ing employ­ers.

These efforts make a mean­ing­ful dif­fer­ence for the fam­il­ies and employ­ers who bene­fit from them, and they offer valu­able mod­els for innov­a­tion. However, the scope of Ohio’s child care chal­lenges requires solu­tions that extend bey­ond indi­vidual pro­grams and reach families across com­munit­ies and work­places.

The fact is that child care is intensely labor-intens­ive and costly. Tra­di­tional mar­ket forces don’t apply. Cut­ting costs in this industry means redu­cing the num­ber of pro­fes­sion­als who are nur­tur­ing, teach­ing and caring for our pre­cious young chil­dren.

Eco­nom­iz­ing can eas­ily become neg­lect.

If we’re ser­i­ous about cre­at­ing a robust work­force, lever­aging all our cit­izens’ tal­ent, ensuring fam­il­ies can move up the eco­nomic lad­der, giv­ing young chil­dren the found­a­tion they need to suc­ceed in school, we have to com­mit to ser­i­ous and sus­tained pub­lic investment in qual­ity, afford­able child care.

Busi­nesses accept that they must be part of the solu­tion to this costly chal­lenge and that they will be asked to step up. Their con­tri­bu­tions will look dif­fer­ent in dif­fer­ent places. They can offer job shar­ing, flex­ible schedul­ing and ensure sched­ule pre­dict­ab­il­ity. Other companies may have the resources to offer child care sub­sidies, on-site child care or backup child care.

Ohio has taken mean­ing­ful steps over time to sup­port fam­il­ies strug­gling with the high cost of child care. It offers sub­sid­ized child care to eli­gible low-income fam­il­ies, but has among the low­est income eli­gib­il­it­ies in the coun­try. It has expan­ded access to pub­lic preschool, but this is mostly a part-time pro­gram avail­able only dur­ing the school year. And recently the state launched a cost-shar­ing pilot that divides child care costs among employ­ers, employees, and the state.

These invest­ments are help­ing fam­il­ies today and rep­res­ent import­ant pro­gress. However, they have not yet added up to a com­pre­hens­ive, sus­tain­able sys­tem that meets the needs of all Ohio fam­il­ies.

Main­tain­ing and build­ing upon these gains will require sig­ni­fic­ant ongo­ing invest­ment and long-term com­mit­ment from state lead­ers.

The next gov­ernor will inherit both the oppor­tun­ity and the chal­lenge of ensur­ing that these efforts evolve into dur­able solu­tions that fam­il­ies, pro­viders and employ­ers can count on for years to come. We stand ready to be a part­ner in that work.

Learn more about Groundwork Ohio's Business Coalition for Child Care Solutions and discover how business leaders across Ohio are collaborating to strengthen the workforce by expanding access to affordable, high-quality child care.