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Residents urge St. Louis County to address child care affordability, invite board to Northland Affordability Summit
Summary
Two residents told the St. Louis County public listening session that child care costs and limited availability are forcing families out of the workforce and urged board members to attend a Sept. 13 Northland Affordability Summit at the Hermantown YMCA.
At a St. Louis County public listening session, Ben Wagner and Mackenzie Foley urged county board members to prioritize child care affordability and attend the Northland Affordability Summit scheduled for Sept. 13 at the Hermantown YMCA.
The speakers told the board that high costs and long wait lists are pushing parents to leave the workforce and limiting families’ ability to remain in the community. "I'm here to ask the members of the board to attend the upcoming, Northland Affordability Summit," said Ben Wagner, a Duluth resident. Wagner said the wait list his family faced two years ago was 12 to 15 months and that he has heard it has since "doubled." He added that child care costs could exceed his mortgage and asked whether raising a family in Minnesota should depend on whether parents can afford child care.
Mackenzie Foley, a Duluth Township resident, echoed those concerns and cited a federal advisory on parental stress. "Last year, the surgeon general released an advisory called Parents Under Pressure," Foley said, and argued that child care should be treated as infrastructure. "Child care should not be the reason why families are choosing to leave the workforce or choosing between paying the bills or meeting the needs of their children," Foley said.
Both speakers tied child care availability to broader economic effects: reduced workforce participation, lost consumer spending and fewer local employees for businesses. Wagner described personal experience: after his wife's parental leave their family had a gap of about a month with no child care, which he said they were able to manage only because they were ‘‘lucky.’’ Foley said early childhood educators are leaving the workforce, some providers have closed and wait lists now stretch more than a year.
Wagner and Foley invited board members to the Northland Affordability Summit to hear additional family stories and local proposals. The summit, as described by the speakers, will focus on affordability for child care, housing and health care and is scheduled for Sept. 13 from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the Hermantown YMCA.
No formal staff response or board action on child care appeared in the public-comment portion of the session recorded in the transcript.
