The Facts: 

 

• Louisiana’s long-term prosperity depends on the caliber of its single most important economic asset—its people.

• Early care and education is both a workforce productivity and workforce development issue.

 

Workforce Productivity:​

​

• Access to high quality, affordable early care and education is critical to ensuring working parents’ productivity and ability to get skills training.

• 66% of children birth through age 5 in Louisiana have both parents, or their single parent, in the workforce.

• Child care costs almost as much as a public college tuition.

• According to national studies, the average employee misses 8-9 days/year due to child care related absences.

• Louisiana has cut its Child Care Assistance Program by 70% in 8 years—from serving over 40,000 to under 12,500 children.

• Louisiana currently spends  less than 1/2 of 1% of our State General Funds on early care and education.​

​

Workforce Development:

​

• Investing in quality early care and education is critical to building a skilled workforce essential to Louisiana’s future.

• High quality early learning programs are important because 80% of brain development happens between birth and age three, establishing a strong or weak foundation for all learning that follows.​

• Children who begin school behind, generally remain behind.

• ​In Louisiana, almost 50% of children enter kindergarten already behind.​

 

 

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce cites a return-on-investment of as much as 8-to- 1 for each $1 invested in high quality early childhood programs.