During the pandemic, a mother named Anna Butcher in Morgantown, West Virginia, lost both her job and her daycare provider. When she finally returned to work, she claimed that the prices were outrageous for the area and that the nearby centers were at least a year full. In order to provide coverage for their young son at home, she and her husband now work two jobs, one full-time and one part-time. Her tale is not unique. That’s the idea. It is one of tens of millions of stories that all point to the same structural failure—the childcare desert—according to researchers who have spent years mapping the issue.
According to the Center for American Progress’s 2016 and later refined definition, a childcare desert is any area where there are more than three young children under the age of six per licensed childcare slot. Until you try to find a spot for a toddler and find that every center within driving distance has a waiting list measured in months, it seems like an abstract concept.
According to the 2026 CAP analysis, which was carried out in conjunction with researchers from Stanford University and the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, roughly 46% of American children under the age of six currently reside in a childcare desert. Compared to 51% in 2018, that represents a minor improvement. Technically, progress. Despite these advancements, almost half of the nation’s youngest children are still being raised in areas lacking proper, licensed care.
For many years, childcare access has been framed as a rights issue rather than a market issue by the World Organization for Early Childhood Education, or OMEP as it is known internationally. OMEP, which has special consultative status with the UN and UNESCO, has always maintained that state parties, or governments, are accountable for ensuring that children’s rights to care and education are fulfilled, not just for setting the stage for private markets to eventually fill the void. In response to COVID-19, the organization’s 2020 position paper outlined what the pandemic had made impossible to ignore: children living in poverty, children from families experiencing financial hardship, and children without access to high-quality early care were experiencing compounding harms that extended well beyond any one policy failure. Since then, researchers and advocates have been building on this framing—childcare as infrastructure, childcare as a rights obligation, and childcare as something governments owe rather than something families must find.
The current data’s equity dimensions are especially striking. At 52.2 percent, majority-Hispanic and Latino communities have the highest licensed desert rate of any demographic group. This number is consistent across urban, suburban, and rural areas, indicating a systemic supply failure rather than a geographical issue. The average percentage of non-Hispanic, majority-Black communities is about 35%. There is a clear trend: the infrastructure that does exist is concentrated in urban areas and virtually vanishes in rural Black communities. The percentage of young children living in licensed childcare deserts in the most remote rural areas actually increased to 70% in 2025 from about two-thirds in 2018, indicating that rural America as a whole has gone in the wrong direction. The problem worsened in the communities with the least resources, while the overall national number gradually declined.
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Organization (International) | OMEP — World Organisation for Early Childhood Education |
| OMEP UN/UNESCO Status | Special consultative status with UN and UNESCO |
| OMEP Focus | Promote rights of the child, with emphasis on rights to education and care, worldwide |
| Key Research Body (U.S.) | Center for American Progress (CAP) |
| CAP Original Report | 2016 — first nationwide childcare desert analysis |
| CAP Updated Report | April 29, 2026 — America’s Licensed Child Care Deserts |
| Research Partners (2026 Report) | W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, Stanford University |
| Definition of Childcare Desert | Area where more than 3 children under age 6 exist per every licensed childcare slot |
| % of U.S. Children Under 6 in Deserts (2025) | ~46% (down from 51% in 2018) |
| Worst States by Desert Rate | Alaska (96%), Hawaii (95%), Idaho (83%) |
| Best States by Desert Rate | Washington D.C. (5%), Massachusetts (21%) |
| Rural Desert Rate (Remote Areas) | 70% in 2025 — up from ~67% in 2018 |
| Hispanic/Latino Desert Rate | 52.2% — highest of any demographic group |
| Black, non-Hispanic Desert Rate | ~35% average |
| Children in Poverty in Deserts | 43.5% |
| Head Start Urban Desert Rate | 99.7% of qualifying urban households |
| Head Start Rural Desert Rate | 96.7% of qualifying rural households |
| Key PMC Research (Rural Kentucky) | Prusinski et al., 2022 — childcare desert barriers in rural community |
| COVID-19 OMEP Position Paper | 2020 — Early Childhood Education and Care in the Time of COVID-19 |
| Real Family Case (CAP Report) | Anna Butcher, Morgantown, WV — lost childcare and job simultaneously during pandemic |
Prusinski and colleagues’ study of a rural Kentucky community designated as a childcare desert, which was published in PMC, added something that the headline figures by themselves are unable to adequately convey. The financial obstacles are fundamental and real; providers close because they are unable to make ends meet on tuition alone without adequate public funding. However, the study discovered more levels of miscommunication at work beneath the surface, including presumptions about what parents prioritize, misconceptions about what families can afford, and ambiguous language that allowed various stakeholders—parents, providers, and local officials—to effectively talk past one another about solutions. The researchers contended that these misunderstandings exacerbate the supply shortage by making it more difficult to come to a consensus within the community and to finance and implement potential solutions.
It’s difficult to ignore how much of this research consistently leads to the same unsettling conclusion. The issue is not that Americans are unaware of childcare deserts. Parents who reside there are familiar with them. The issue is that a system that fails almost half of the nation’s youngest children in normal times and completely collapses when something goes wrong is the result of decades of underfunding, a reliance on a patchwork of small private providers operating on thin margins, and a political failure to treat early care as essential public infrastructure.
