10/25/2025
Important stuff and impacting families NOW.
I started the week off in LR for an Early Childhood Commission meeting to find immediate solutions to the childcare crisis and continue efforts to support Early Childhood families and care providers, after State and Federal cuts to the Better Beginnings and ABC programs. We will continue this work with a stakeholder working group next Tuesday.
According to a survey sampling Arkansas providers, our state is facing a cascading economic crisis from these childcare subsidy cuts, with more than 400 early childhood educators at risk for job loss, and over 80 childcare centers—40% of those surveyed—at risk of closing by Nov 1st, if nothing changes. .
Those closures could leave 6,400 families without care, forcing an estimated 3,200 parents, mostly mothers, out of the workforce. Providers are collectively losing $727,984 each week, or nearly $38 million annually, in revenue that once circulated through local economies.
Those lost wages and business earnings translate into roughly $100 million in foregone household income and an estimated $9 to $14 million in lost state and local tax revenue, all while driving more families toward public assistance.
Arkansas’s childcare cuts threaten not just children’s wellbeing but the state’s labor force, tax base, and economic growth.
Tuesday, I flew to San José for an NCSL Jobs Summit with a preconference on Health Care Workforce Peer Group and a Family and Medical Leave focus group. The Jobs Summit began Wednesday and continued through Friday afternoon and included an "AI in the Workforce" day at the Meta campus.
It's always great to hear what colleagues are doing in other states and sharing some successful and/or innovative efforts in AR. Rep Bruce Cozart rep'ed us well on the Workforce Supports Panel discussing AR programs.
Thank you to the National Conference of State Legislatures and Speaker Brian Evans for the invitation.
