Women's Foundation of Colorado presents snapshot showing high childcare costs, Medicaid reliance and deep racial disparities

At a League of Women Voters of Colorado event, the Women's Foundation of Colorado presented a new state-focused snapshot of women’s economic status, highlighting Medicaid dependence, maternal and infant health disparities, the steep cost of childcare and long-term wage and retirement gaps.

Louise Meyerland, vice president of programs at the Women's Foundation of Colorado, said the snapshot—produced with the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and drawn largely from the American Community Survey—shows Medicaid ‘‘financed over a third of births and roughly 60% of the births among women of color’’ in 2023. She said nearly one in six Colorado women rely on Medicaid overall and that coverage varies by race and employment status; among unemployed women aged 19–64, 36.6% had Medicaid coverage.

Meyerland pointed to sharp maternal and infant disparities: Colorado had about 4.5 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 2022 (the 13th lowest rate nationwide), but Black infants experienced substantially higher rates—about 9.7 deaths per 1,000 live births—compared with roughly 3.3–3.4 per 1,000 for white infants.

Childcare affordability emerged as a central finding. Citing Child Care Aware data used by IWPR, Meyerland said Colorado ranks fourth among the least affordable states for center-based infant care. ‘‘The average cost of center-based care in Colorado is nearly $20,000 a year for one infant,’’ she said, adding that home-based family childcare averages nearly $13,000 a year. On average, center-based infant care consumes nearly a third of women’s median annual income in the state and exceeds 40% of earnings for Black, Hispanic and American Indian/Alaska Native women.

Those costs, Meyerland argued, help explain labor-market differences: mothers of young children are far more likely than fathers to reduce hours or work part time. Between 2019 and 2023, employed mothers of children under 6 were ‘‘nearly five times as likely to work part time’’ compared with fathers, she said.

The snapshot also documents persistent wage gaps that compound over a lifetime. Meyerland gave an example for 2023: women 25 and older working full time year-round with a bachelor’s degree had a median annual income of about $70,000 compared with $96,000 for comparable men. She said women age 62 and older had just about 65% of the median annual retirement income of men, reflecting the cumulative impact of pay and caregiving disparities.

Meyerland cautioned that some data are missing for marginalized groups because of limits in data collection and urged users to note asterisks on charts where coverage is incomplete. She encouraged League members to use the snapshot and IWPR’s State Policy and Action Lab resources when advocating for policy changes.

The Foundation framed the findings as a basis for prioritizing policy work on affordable childcare, living wages for care workers, restoration of the family affordability tax credit and other fiscal reforms to safeguard investments in families. The presentation closed with attendees asking about the Foundation’s ballot and candidate engagement plans and the presenters noting a focus on statewide ballot measures and issue-focused candidate engagement in 2026.