America’s Child Care Shortage Is Pushing Military Families to the Limit

Even after finding a solution, it can be quickly shot down. Williams is preparing to spend an entire month’s salary on childcare so she can attend an upcoming field training while her husband is deployed.

Mia Reisweber, who works remotely in higher education and whose husband is also in the Army, said she has been on a perpetual cycle of child care waiting lists for the past eight years. When her first child was born, she spent about a year on the base daycare waiting list and had to bring her mother in to help fill the gap so she and her husband could return to work. When she learned she was pregnant with her second child, she immediately got on the waiting list for care at West Point Military Academy, two years before she anticipated her family might move there.

“The second I found out I was pregnant, I mean the second, we were on the waiting list. This was, for me, a bigger priority than making a doctor’s appointment,” Reisweber said.

Reisweber said she has seen varying levels of support when it comes to meeting child care needs and supporting working spouses.

“We have our pockets of senior leaders who support us, who understand this and who have endured the struggle themselves,” she said. “So we have people who say, ‘Just make the spouse stay home and take care of the child.’”

The biggest barrier to expanding the number of children the Army can care for has been a shortage of workers, said Lt. Gen. Kevin Vereen, whose responsibilities include overseeing the Army’s child care operations. For the Army, which has about 4,500 children on its waiting lists, about 23% of its child care positions are unfilled, although that is an improvement from 2022, when about 37% of jobs were unfilled.

To help recruit child care workers, the Army has offered bonuses of about $2,000, increased their pay to an average of $18 to $33 per hour and started offer discounted child care for workers at its centers, along with access to low-cost groceries sold at some of its base commissaries. The Army also recently began offering weekend child care in 20 states for members of the Army Reserve and National Guard.

“We are seeing a difference and what we are doing is making a difference when it comes to trying to get employees,” Vereen said.

One disadvantage the military has is the long hiring process potential employees can face, as the military requires its child care providers to pass a background check and obtain authorization to work on a base, he said. This can add one to two months to the hiring process, during which time workers may obtain competing offers from other employers.

The Air Force, which has around 3,700 children on the waiting list, also it startedoffer Child carers receive free tuition at their centers for one child and 25% discount for additional children. The Air Force has proposed spending $40 million to build new facilities and is working on other efforts to increase space and the number of suppliers.

Members of Congress have also proposed legislation to address the child care needs of military families, including a Senate bill aimed at helping child care providers near military installations increase their staffing. A bill in the Chamber would pay for child care while the military spouse looks for work, which could help families who can’t afford child care because only one parent works but can’t get a job because they don’t have child care.