By April Corbin-Girnus
Boosting Nevada’s beleaguered child care and elder care industries makes economic sense for the state, a trio of reports argues, and recommendations on how to do just that have already been laid out for policymakers to consider.
A new policy brief by The Lincy Institute at UNLV and national consulting firm Tripp Umbach reports that the Las Vegas metropolitan area is short approximately 46,100 direct care workers, which they define as people who provide hands-on assistance to the elderly, young, or disabled. Direct care workers include daycare providers and home care workers. Currently, about 102,300 are employed in these types of jobs, compared to the 148,400 that would be expected given the region’s population.
Put another way, the direct care workforce is 69% of what it should be.
Unless addressed, that deficit of workers is expected to worsen as the overall population ages and the demand for elder care services rises.
The new analysis builds off a report released early last year by a workforce development group that argued addressing child care needs would be good for businesses and the economy at large. The renewed focus comes less than three months out from the Nevada State Legislature’s 2025 session.
Advocates had hoped that the covid-19 pandemic would spark greater interest in addressing the already well documented shortage of child care and elder care.
“Childcare workers were deemed essential workers,” recalled Jenna Weglarz-Ward, a UNLV associate professor and research coordinator at the university’s early childhood education center, during a panel event on the issue Monday. “I was, like, ‘We’ve done it. We are essential, important.’”
She continued, “That was a time where it really demonstrated that we do need care for everything else in our society to work. You need doctors to have child care for their children so they can provide you care. We need bus drivers to have care so you can get where you want to go. All of those things. I was really optimistic.”
But much of that optimism has since faded, she acknowledged.
“Even though we haven’t kept that momentum going,” Weglarz-Ward said, “we are still in a better place where people are at least having the conversations and figuring out how we better support that sector in our society.”
Covid relief dollars gave a boost to the industry, providing both immediate assistance to those who need it and funding for infrastructure improvements designed to help long term, but that support is ending.
Policy recommendations
Child care is the “weakest link in the care economy,” the Tripp Umbach analysis found, with an estimated 5,330 workers needed in Southern Nevada but only 3,305 currently employed. Previous research has found that 74% of Nevada children ages 0 to 5 lack access to licensed child care.
“Most families generally will pick a program that is most convenient in location,” said Weglarz-Ward. “Is it closest to my house or closest to my work? And can I afford it? Quality is not the primary decision factor, because we’ll take whatever we can get that works with our budget and our lives. If it’s high quality, that’s a bonus.”
Low wages and a general lack of respect for such jobs both need to be addressed in order to improve the industry, the panelists agreed, but those must be balanced with the need to keep the cost of care down for families.
Tripp Umbach’s analysis found that the cost of child care as a percentage of income is already higher in Las Vegas than anywhere else in the country — nearly 20%. The percentage of family income directed to childcare in peer cities were noticeably lower: Phoenix (14.4% for center-based infant care), Denver (14%) and Kansas City (9.9%).
The Governor’s Workforce Development Board, which is housed under the state’s Office of Workforce Innovation (OWINN), last year created a working group to study child care from a business perspective and make policy recommendations to the governor and Legislature. Hugh Anderson, the outgoing chair of the board, said one recurring theme heard was that existing regulations can be cumbersome to individuals who would like to offer in-home care and organizations like churches that would like to use existing spaces to provide child care.
Anderson emphasized that the safety of children or adults in elder care should always be the top priority but argued that some requirements could be tweaked without compromising safety. He pointed to a state requirement that licensed facilities have 37.5 square feet of outdoor space per child.
Larger, more urban cities often allow nearby parks to meet outdoor space requirements, he noted.
“If there’s a park two blocks away, can (an in-home child care provider) take the children to the park every day?” he asked rhetorically. “Those are the kinds of things that we want to really clear the decks with and make it practical to get to solutions.”
The workforce development board also recommended the state encourage businesses to use 45F, a federal tax credit program for employers who invest in child care by offering on-side daycare options or contracting with third-party providers.
Anderson said the board was “astounded” by the lack of knowledge about the federal program, which he described as a “very, very significant” benefit for businesses. A survey of Nevada business owners found only about a fifth knew such a program existed.
The board also recommended the state consider property tax abatements for employers who offer on-site child care facilities.
One bigger-picture goal should be to restructure the child care and elder care industries to allow clearer paths for upward mobility of workers. Anderson pointed to nursing as an example. People can enter that health care field with a certificate requiring only a few weeks of study, then work their way up with additional education and experience.
On the elder care side, home care workers have benefitted from the efforts of organized labor, which has successfully lobbied for increased Medicaid reimbursement rates tied to better wages and working conditions. But the industry is still replete with labor issues, such as wage theft and a lack of benefits, and is playing catch-up after two decades of stagnant reimbursement rates.
And more could be done to support people providing unpaid elder care, said Ji Won Yoo, director of the geriatric fellowship program at the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV.
Broad support
An estimated 630,000 workers in Southern Nevada are responsible for someone needing care, according to Tripp Umbach. Fewer than half — 280,000 — pay for care. Most — 350,000 — rely on unpaid care, such as family or friends, or they juggle providing care while working.
If those workers were to drop out of the labor force because of their care responsibilities, the negative economic impact would be an estimated $34.5 billion annually.
Many workers, particularly working-age women, have already left careers and jobs. Nationally, a quarter of young parents leave the workforce because of a lack of affordable childcare, and Tripp Umbach estimates 46,200 people in Southern Nevada are unemployed due to their unpaid care responsibilities.
Weglarz-Ward, who started her career providing direct care before eventually moving into academia, said her paramedic husband worked night shifts for a decade in order for them to balance care for their four children.
“(That) means he was very tired for 10 years,” she added. “Or he worked 24 hours. We’ve been really good at balancing. Like, what are our schedules? Like, literally handing off children in a parking lot… That affects the family system as well because you’re not spending time as a family together.”
Some middle-aged workers find themselves burdened with caring for both their children and their aging parents. This “sandwich generation” is at particular risk economically and emotionally.
Paul Umbach, the president and founder of Tripp Umbach, pointed to a September survey conducted by Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland showing broad support in Nevada and other swing states for federal policies addressing child care and elder care. The survey found that 73% of Nevadans — 64% of Republicans and 82% of Democrats — supported reinstating the pandemic-era higher child tax credit to a fully refundable $3,600 per child. Majorities in both parties also supported federal funding for universal preschool and subsidized childcare for low- and middle-income families.
While that survey focused on federal policies, policy solutions at the state level already exist, Umbach argued, they just need to be brought to policymakers.
“Somebody just has to find the product to sell,” he said. “The ice cream that we’re selling, you should have a long line wanting to eat it. Yet we’re not selling it because we’re not good at selling it. But we have to work on that. Find a way from the peer best practices, something that you can find a way to sell to the Legislature and get moving on it.”
Waiting for the federal government to fix it isn’t a viable option, Umbach added, “because we know what will happen there.”
“Nothing,” responded the moderator of the panel.
“Less than nothing,” countered Umbach.
