Child Care Centers
Industry Profile Report
Dive Deep into the industry with a 25+ page industry report (pdf format) including the following chapters
Industry Overview Current Conditions, Industry Structure, How Firms Operate, Industry Trends, Credit Underwriting & Risks, and Industry Forecast.
Call Preparation Call Prep Questions, Industry Terms, and Weblinks.
Financial Insights Working Capital, Capital Financing, Business Valuation, and Financial Benchmarks.
Industry Profile Excerpts
Industry Overview
The 61,500 child care centers in the US provide care for infants and children, and offer services out of dedicated facilities (private centers) or residences (home-based centers). Most child care centers are small, independent operations – 79% have a single location and 78% employ less than 20 workers.
Potential for Liability
Providing care for children is a high stakes operation, where even small accidents and errors can have severe consequences.
High Turnover
Finding and retaining permanent staff is a problem for the child care industry due to low wages, lack of benefits, long hours, and challenging work.
Industry size & Structure
A typical child care center operates out of a single location, employs 17 workers, and generates about $927,000 annually.
- The child care center industry consists of about 61,500 companies, employs about 1,040,000 workers and generates about $57 billion annually.
- Child care centers include nursery schools and pre-schools.
- Most child care centers are small, independent operations - 79% have a single location and 78% employ less than 20 workers.
- Pre-school age children of working parents average 36 hours of care from child care providers per week.
- Unlike other educational service providers, accreditation is not critical to operations: Less than 10% of child care centers are accredited.
- Large companies include KinderCare Education, Learning Care Group (La Petite Academy, Childtime, Tutor Time, Montessori Unlimited, The Children's Courtyard), and Bright Horizons Family Solutions.
Industry Forecast
Child Care Centers Industry Growth
Recent Developments
Feb 8, 2025 - Presidential Executive Order may Impact Industry
- An executive order signed by President Trump shortly after he took office undid restrictions that kept US Immigration and Customs Enforcement from raiding schools and childcare programs. One in four children under the age of six has at least one foreign-born parent, according to the Center for Law and Social Policy. Childcare providers say that many of these parents are fearful of deportation now, according to The Guardian newspaper. The executive order may affect more than just children: One in five child care workers is an immigrant, according to a 2024 report in the Journal of Public Economics.
- Child care is now the biggest household expense for many families, according to the Tennessee State of the Child Report. A 2021 report by Child Care Aware of America found that in 34 states, the price of infant care was higher than in-state college tuition. Child care costs more in the state than rent, college tuition, or even a mortgage. The average annual cost in Tennessee for infant care in 2024 was $13,126. In-state tuition at the University of Tennessee was only a few hundred dollars more, at $13,484. Child care workers across the nation are struggling with poverty-level wages, according to the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment. The median wage nationally for early childhood educators is just $13.07 an hour, which has resulted in some workers relying on public assistance. The 2024 Early Childhood Workforce Index showed that pay scales are insufficient for a single adult to earn a living wage in any state. Nearly half of child care workers rely on assistance programs like SNAP benefits and Medicaid.
- Child care facility owners contacted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City noted increasing liability insurance premiums as an emerging challenge for their business. One provider said that their premiums increased 94% in 2023. Another suggested that a growing informal child care network is operating without insurance due to the rising costs. Increasing operating costs, particularly rent and insurance, result in higher tuition costs for families in the absence of additional public funds, but there are limits to tuition increases, according to the National Association for the Education of Young Children.
- Child care center sales are forecast to grow at a 4.88% compounded annual rate from 2024 to 2028, faster than the growth of the overall economy, according to Inforum and the Interindustry Economic Research Fund, Inc. Child care industry employment and average wages for nonsupervisory employees increased slightly during the first 11 months of 2024, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Child care industry revenue increased 3.5% year over year but decreased 8.9% quarter over quarter during the third quarter of 2024, according to the US Census Bureau.
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