A Dallas advocacy group is calling for a countywide tax to fund childcare – and get more parents back into the workforce.
The relatively new Dallas Childcare Works coalition wants Dallas County commissioners to place a 3% childcare property tax on November’s ballot. If voters approve, it would generate $132 million for scholarships to help cash-strapped parents pay for childcare, and therefore, return to jobs outside the home.
The Texas Women’s Foundation and Every Texan on Tuesday jointly released a white paper declaring a childcare crisis for Dallas and Texas.
The report argues that without funding assistance to help pay for childcare, thousands of Texas women — and at least 6,900 mothers in Dallas County who would hold salaried jobs — aren’t able to work because they’re caring for a child or children at home.
That has a cascading and negative effect, according to Coda Rayo-Garza, senior researcher of the study.
“Texas's female labor force is growing faster than its male labor force, ” Rayo-Garza said. “Women are increasingly the ones sustaining that workforce expansion.”
She said women are also outpacing men in educational attainment, so employers are not just leaning on women for skilled, educated talent — they “depend on mothers to meet workforce demands and drive growth.”
But the crisis is worsening, she said, not improving, because childcare costs so much. The research reveals a minimum-wage employee would need to work 37 weeks, 40 hours a week, to pay for a year of childcare. At roughly $11,000 a year for one child, that’s more than a year’s tuition at a state university.
During Tuesday’s presentation, Hillary Evans, vice president of the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, said “nearly 19,000 work-willing parents are not able to enter the labor force due to these childcare barriers,” adding that thousands of parents miss work because of childcare issues.
The paper also showed that with high-priced childcare keeping moms at home, mothers were foregoing $1.6 billion of income they would’ve earned from salaries.
And with that income, money would then flow to groceries, gas stations, and other retail goods and services.
“This is why we keep saying that childcare is economic infrastructure,” Rayo-Garza said. “The return on this investment isn't just to families, it's to our entire region.”
Dallas County commissioners have discussed the issue at recent meetings, the Dallas Morning News reported, and County Judge Clay Jenkins told a Dallas Regional Chamber event the county is “looking at that model.”
The measure would have to be approved for a vote by August in order to appear on the November ballot. If it does and voters approve it, the item would cost the average property owner $10 a month in new taxes.
In 2024, Travis County voters approved a proposal to raise taxes to fund affordable childcare.
Bill Zeeble is KERA’s education reporter. Got a tip? Email Bill at bzeeble@kera.org. You can follow him on X @bzeeble.
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