Because child care affects much more than families with young children. It affects whether Alaskans can work, whether businesses can find employees, whether military members can serve, whether communities can keep young families, and whether Alaska has the workforce needed to grow its economy.

Alaska’s child care shortage is already keeping thousands of parents from working as much as they would like. Earlier Alaska research found that 51% of families could not fully participate in the workforce because of the cost, availability, or quality of child care. More recent national research shows the same problem continuing: 60% of caregivers who needed child care reported missing work, reducing hours, or changing jobs because they had difficulty finding care.

The latest First Five Years Fund analysis estimates that child care problems cost Alaska’s economy $344 million every year in lost earnings and productivity.

Child care is not a side issue. It is part of the basic infrastructure Alaska needs to work, grow, and compete.

Big enough that families across the state regularly struggle to find care even when they can afford it.

More than 23,000 Alaska children were estimated to need child care they could not access so their parents could work, according to testimony before the Alaska Legislature in 2025. Alaska’s Governor’s Task Force on Child Care also found that 61% of Alaskans live in communities considered child care deserts, where the supply of licensed care falls far short of the number of children who may need it.

Providers interviewed by the Alaska Beacon in July 2026 said the gap is continuing to grow.

And this is not just an Anchorage problem. Rural communities often have the fewest options, and losing even one provider can leave an entire community without enough care.

The First Five Years Fund updated its Alaska data in July 2026. It found:

• 60% of Alaska children have all available parents participating in the workforce.
• The average cost of center-based infant care is $12,107 per year, or $1,009 per month.
• Only about 13% of eligible Alaska children age five and younger receive assistance through the Child Care and Development Block Grant.
• About 9,900 Alaska working families receive some help with child care costs through the federal Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit.
• Child care problems cost Alaska an estimated $344 million every year through lost earnings and productivity.

Those numbers help explain why child care keeps coming up in conversations about affordability, workforce shortages, economic development, and whether young families can build their future in Alaska.

Because you probably depend every day on people who do.

The nurse at the hospital, construction worker on a major project, teacher at your local school, police officer, restaurant employee, small business owner, military member, or person keeping the grocery store open may also be a parent. When they cannot find child care, they may miss work, cut their hours, turn down a promotion, or leave the workforce entirely.

That affects everybody. Businesses have a harder time staying staffed. Hours can be reduced. Projects take longer. Employers compete over a smaller pool of workers. Economic growth slows.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has made this argument directly, calling child care an essential work support for families and employers and supporting bipartisan legislation to expand child care access, parental choice, workforce development, and provider supply.

Voters without children recognize the problem too. In 2025 polling, 80% of rural nonparents said the ability of working parents to find and afford quality child care was either in a state of crisis or a major problem. You do not need to have a child in care to have a stake in whether your community has enough workers.

Absolutely.

Child care allows parents who want or need to work to show up, stay employed, take additional hours, pursue training, and advance in their careers.

In Alaska, early care and education allows nearly 50,000 adults to participate in the workforce and contributes billions of dollars in earnings. But 51% of Alaska families have reported that child care problems prevent them from participating in the workforce as much as they would like.

The Bipartisan Policy Center’s 2026 national survey found particularly large impacts on middle-income families. Among caregivers earning $50,000 to $100,000 annually, 65% had missed work because of child care access problems, 58% had reduced their work hours, and 28% had left a job entirely. For a state already struggling to recruit and retain workers, leaving willing workers on the sidelines because they cannot find child care makes little economic sense.

Alaska wants to build.

Whether the opportunity is energy development, a gasline, mining, roads, housing, fisheries, health care, tourism, construction, or growing small businesses, every major economic project eventually runs into the same question: Where will the workers come from?

Housing, transportation, energy, and broadband are all pieces of the infrastructure required for growth. Child care belongs in that conversation too.

Recruiting thousands of workers to Alaska does little good if parents discover they cannot find someone to care for their children while they work. Long-term economic growth requires communities where workers can not only take a job, but also raise a family and stay. Child care should therefore be part of workforce planning for Alaska’s next generation of major development projects, not something considered after the workers arrive.

Yes. Recent polling shows unusually broad agreement.

A 2025 Bipartisan Policy Center/Cygnal poll of likely Republican primary voters found that 90% said child care is essential for working families and a strong economy. Seventy-two percent wanted Congress to reduce the financial burden of child care for working parents, and 71% said making child care more affordable is one of the most pro-family, pro-worker actions government can take.

Separate First Five Years Fund polling conducted by Republican polling firm UpONE Insights found 74% of rural voters want additional action to help working families find and afford child care, including 72% of rural Republicans, 67% of rural Independents, and 80% of rural Democrats.

That same survey found 69% of rural voters believe federal child care and early learning funding is a good use of taxpayer dollars.

Child care is increasingly Child care is increasingly a bipartisan issue as all agree that the sector is critical as a workforce, affordability, and family issue.

No.

Alaska already has a diverse child care system made up of private businesses, nonprofit organizations, home-based providers, tribal programs, employer-supported programs, Head Start programs, and faith-based organizations.

Good policy can strengthen those choices rather than replace them. State action could help existing providers expand, encourage new businesses to open, reduce unnecessary regulatory barriers, help employers invest in care, address workforce shortages, and help families afford the provider that works best for them. The goal should be more choices for families, not one government-designed model.

Yes. Families should have that choice.

Today, 60% of Alaska children have all available parents in the workforce. Many families need two incomes to pay their mortgage, rent, groceries, utilities, and other expenses. Other parents want to continue their careers, operate businesses, serve in the military, pursue education, or simply choose to remain in the workforce.

Supporting stay-at-home parents and making child care available to working parents do not have to be competing goals. Real parental choice means families have viable options. A parent should be able to stay home because that is the choice that works best for their family, not because child care is unavailable. And a parent who needs or wants to work should not be forced out of the workforce because they cannot find care. The long-term goal can be giving families more financial freedom and more choices. The immediate responsibility is making sure families have workable options today.

Parents and employers absolutely have the primary, most important role, but Alaska’s child care market has structural challenges that neither can solve alone.

Child care is labor intensive. Programs must maintain safe adult-to-child ratios, which limits the number of children each employee can care for. At the same time, families can only absorb so much in tuition. That leaves many providers unable to raise wages enough to compete for workers without making care unaffordable.

The result is a market where care can be too expensive for parents while the people providing it are still paid too little to keep classrooms staffed.

Public policy does not have to replace private responsibility. It can bring employers, families, providers, communities, tribes, nonprofits, and government together to address the gaps the market alone has not been able to close.

Yes, including states with both Republican- and Democrat-led governors and legislatures.

In North Dakota, then-Gov. Doug Burgum signed a nearly $66 million child care package specifically as a response to the state’s workforce shortage. The package expanded assistance for working families, increased support for infant and toddler providers, created an employer cost-sharing pilot, and funded child care workforce training and retention.

In Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee and lawmakers approved $7.2 million to expand the WAGE$ child care workforce program, $5.9 million to expand Smart Steps assistance for working families, and $10.9 million for Boys & Girls Clubs in the FY2025-26 budget. Gov. Lee described the goal as creating one of the most family-friendly workforces in the country.

These states demonstrate that child care action can combine family support, workforce development, private providers, employer participation, and regulatory reform.

Because service members cannot fully perform their jobs if they do not have dependable care for their children.

The Department of Defense considers child care essential to mission readiness, efficiency, and retention. A June 2026 Government Accountability Office report found that military child care programs continue to struggle with worker recruitment and lengthy waitlists. A separate 2026 GAO review noted that many service members must rely on community-based providers when on-base care is unavailable.

That makes Alaska’s civilian child care system part of the support network for military families stationed here.

For a state that plays an outsized role in America’s Arctic defense, strengthening child care is not just a family policy. It is part of maintaining a community where service members can complete their assignments, spouses can work, and military families can thrive.

It can be, particularly when investments are focused on measurable workforce and economic outcomes.

Doing nothing also has a cost. FFYF estimates Alaska is already losing $344 million every year in earnings and productivity because of child care problems.

A responsible approach can use existing federal dollars effectively, leverage employer and local investment, expand private capacity, reduce unnecessary barriers to opening programs, and require clear reporting on results.

Policymakers can ask straightforward questions: Did an investment create or preserve child care slots? Did it help classrooms stay staffed? Did families get back to work? Were rural communities reached? Did private employers participate? Did it make care more affordable?

Child care policy does not have to mean writing a blank check. It can mean making targeted investments, measuring the results, and adjusting based on what works.

There is no single solution, and Alaska’s communities are too different for a one-size-fits-all approach. But the most critical investment thread believes is needed to stabilize our child care system is supporting recruitment and retention of early educators to reduce turnover and keep care as high quality as possible. $6.4M for this priority was unfortunately vetoed by the current Governor and will likely be a top priority next year.

In addition, state leaders can focus on a few other practical goals: keep existing child care programs open, help new providers enter the market, make it easier for employers to participate, address regulatory barriers, protect parental choice, strengthen assistance for working families, and make sure rural, military, tribal, home-based, private, nonprofit, and faith-based providers are part of the solution.

Most importantly, child care should be treated as part of Alaska’s larger economic strategy.

If Alaska wants young people to stay, families to move here, businesses to grow, our military to thrive, and major development projects to succeed, parents need to be able to find safe, reliable care that allows them to work.

Elections determine who will make decisions about Alaska’s workforce, economy, budget, regulations, infrastructure, and families for years to come.

Candidates have talked about creating jobs, developing Alaska’s resources, lowering the cost of living, strengthening the military, supporting businesses, keeping young Alaskans here, and making Alaska the best place in the country to raise a family.

Child care touches every one of those goals.

That is why voters should understand where candidates stand on the issue and what solutions they would pursue. Children cannot vote, but the decisions made in this election will shape the Alaska they grow up in.