Nearly 9,000 families are on the wait list for the Oregon Employment Related Day Care program, and family advocates are calling on lawmakers to ramp up funding to meet the growing need. Child-care prices in Oregon can exceed college tuition and have outpaced growth in household incomes, according to research by Oregon State University.
Dana Hepper, director of policy and advocacy with the Children’s Institute, said most families, even if they don’t qualify for the ERDC, cannot afford child care.
“And most child-care providers do not make living wages. So we can’t rely on just parents paying tuition to solve this child-care crisis,” she insisted…