Child Care Centers

The 63,023 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.

Aug 4, 2026 - Funding Challenges Emerge

• Several funding challenges for the child care industry emerged in 2026, according to education news site EdSurge. Many states have officially run out of pandemic-era relief dollars. The federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act brought cuts to social programs like Medicare and SNAP, formerly known as the food stamps program. That places the onus of funding on states, which may have to pull dollars from other sources like child care. "States are going to have to spend a lot more of their money and there’s just going to be less money to go around," says Aaron Loewenberg, senior policy analyst within the education policy team at New America. Loewenberg notes that states have begun freezing enrollment in child care subsidy programs and are reducing reimbursement rates. "We're already seeing some worrisome signs. Unfortunately, I think we'll probably see more of that as these fiscal realities become real."
• Affordability is the greatest obstacle parents face when securing child care, according to the Pew Research Center. Pew also found that more than half of parents in two-parent families with children under 18 both worked full time in 2025, the first time that this has ever happened. Many parents rely on multiple care arrangements to cover their work hours, with about 39% of working parents saying that they use more than one care arrangement for the same child.
• About 51% of people live in a childcare desert, meaning there aren’t enough facilities that people can afford, according to the Center for American Progress. Rural communities are the most affected. The most remote areas faced the greatest rural penalty, with more than 70% of young children in a licensed child care desert. Deserts affect nearly half of all children living in poverty.
• Child care industry employment decreased moderately and average wages for nonsupervisory employees were unchanged during the first six months of 2026, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Child care center sales are forecast to grow at a 4.91% compounded annual rate from 2026 to 2030, faster than the growth of the overall economy, according to Inforum and the Interindustry Economic Research Fund, Inc.

Industry size & Structure

A typical child care center operates out of a single location, employs 17 workers, and generates about $919,000 annually.

• The child care center industry consists of about 63,023 companies, employs about 1,091,900 workers and generates about $58 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.