Monique Daniels starts her workday before she gets to work. At 5:42 a.m., she is already standing in the kitchen of her apartment outside Columbia, cutting a waffle into small squares while her 3-year-old son cries because his socks feel wrong. Her 7-year-old daughter is still asleep on the couch, where she landed the night before with a library book open on her chest.
Monique’s shift at a medical office starts at 7:30. The child care center opens at 7. On paper, that leaves enough time. In real life, enough time is a fragile thing.
One slow drop-off line, one sick teacher, one fever, one “we’re short-staffed today” message from the center, and the morning collapses. Monique has learned to keep a change of clothes in the car, snacks in the glove box and apology texts already half-written to her supervisor.
“I don’t clock in at 7:30,” she said. “I clock in when I wake up and start trying to make child care work.”
That is the part of South Carolina’s child care crisis that does not always show up in speeches about jobs and growth. A parent can have a job and still be one child care breakdown away from losing it. A business can have open positions and still watch workers turn them down because the hours do not match the center’s hours. A state can celebrate population growth while families quietly ask whether they can afford to keep working.
South Carolina has 5.57 million residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and its population grew 8.8% from April 2020 to July 2025. The state’s median household income was $69,324 from 2020 to 2024. The female labor force participation rate was 55.7%.
Those numbers point to a growing state that depends on working families. But for parents of young children, the labor market has a gatekeeper: someone has to watch the child.
There are not enough seats
The Bipartisan Policy Center’s 2026 South Carolina child care fact sheet estimates the state has 295,722 children under age 5, plus another 573,965 children ages 5 to 13. It estimates that 221,690 children under 5 may need formal child care because all available parents are in the workforce.
The same report counted 206,520 formal child care spots in licensed or registered programs. That leaves 28,350 children without a formal spot, a 12.8% child care gap.
That gap is not evenly felt. It is sharper for infants, for parents working evenings or weekends, for rural families, for parents without relatives nearby and for low-income households that need help paying tuition.
Monique called six centers when her son was 14 months old. Two did not take children that young. One had a waiting list. One cost more than her rent. One did not open early enough. One had space, but only three days a week.
“I remember thinking, I did everything people tell you to do,” she said. “I got a job. I made a budget. I asked early. And still, there was no place for him.”
The Center for American Progress reported in 2026 that 46% of U.S. children under age 6 lived in a child care desert in 2025. The national finding matters in South Carolina because the state’s challenge is not only cost. It is geography, staffing and supply.
A parent cannot use an affordable center that is full. A parent cannot accept a job when the only available care closes before the shift ends. A parent cannot drive 40 minutes to a cheaper slot if gas, time and work schedules make the slot unusable.
Child care has to exist. It has to be affordable. It has to be nearby. It has to be open when families need it. That is a harder standard than simply counting seats.
The cost can swallow the paycheck
The average annual cost of child care for one South Carolina child under age 5 was $9,089, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. That represents 9% of a median dual-family income and 30% of a median single-parent income.
For one child, that is already heavy. For two children, it can become the deciding factor in whether work pays enough to justify work.
Monique’s son is in full-time care. Her daughter needs after-school care when Monique cannot leave work in time for pickup. The two bills do not arrive with policy language. They arrive as numbers due on Friday.
“People say, ‘At least you’re working,’” Monique said. “But some weeks I feel like I’m working so I can afford to keep working.”
First Five Years Fund reported that in South Carolina, 64% of children have all available parents participating in the workforce, while the average cost of care is $10,474 a year, or $873 per month. It also reported that more than 17,000 children age 5 and under have child care costs subsidized through the Child Care and Development Block Grant, but that represents only 17% of those eligible.
Subsidies help. But if most eligible children are not reached, the relief becomes selective. Some families get help. Others earn too much to qualify, too little to afford care, or find out that the money is not available when they need it.
South Carolina’s child care scholarship program has also tightened access. SC Child Care posted that effective Dec. 1, 2025, the Working Families, also known as Strong Start, child care scholarship program placed a pause on accepting applications unless families fall into protected categories such as TANF, special needs, homelessness, child welfare or domestic violence.
For parents, that kind of notice can change everything. A scholarship is not a bonus. It can be the bridge between employment and leaving the workforce.
Businesses are paying, too
Child care is often described as a family problem. South Carolina employers know it is also a workforce problem.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation reported in 2025 that child care-related disruptions cost South Carolina approximately $997 million annually in lost economic potential. The estimate included $818 million in employer costs from absenteeism and turnover and $179 million in lost tax revenue.
Those numbers put a dollar value on what supervisors already see.
A worker leaves early because a center calls. A parent turns down a promotion because the schedule changes. A new hire quits after two weeks because a grandmother can no longer help. A manager rewrites the schedule again. A business loses productivity. A family loses income. The state loses tax revenue.
Monique has missed work for the usual reasons children miss care: fever, stomach bug, center closure, a teacher training day that did not match her work calendar. She says her supervisor tries to be patient, but patience does not make the front desk run itself.
“I can hear it in her voice,” Monique said. “She’s not mad at me. She’s tired of solving the same problem.”
The national picture is similar. The Bipartisan Policy Center reported that across the country, 14.8 million children under 5 may need child care, but only 10.8 million formal spots exist. It estimated a national child care gap of 4.19 million children, or 28%, and projected that the gap could cost the U.S. economy $216.4 billion to $329.4 billion over 10 years.
South Carolina’s gap is smaller than the national percentage. But smaller does not mean small. A 12.8% gap still represents tens of thousands of children and many more parents adjusting work around care.
The people caring for children are underpaid
The shortage is not only about buildings. It is about workers. The Bipartisan Policy Center counted 20,701 child care employees and providers in South Carolina and listed the median hourly wage for child care employees at $10.96. That wage is at the center of the crisis.
Parents often wonder why care costs so much. Providers often wonder how they can keep doors open while paying workers enough to stay. Both can be true. Child care is labor-intensive because safe care requires adults in the room. A center cannot double the number of infants without adding staff. It cannot raise wages without raising tuition, unless public funding or employer support fills part of the gap.
That creates a broken triangle: parents cannot pay more, workers need to earn more, and providers cannot easily absorb the difference.
Monique sees the workers at her son’s center every morning. She knows which teacher can calm him when he cries. She knows which one remembers that he likes trucks but not dinosaurs. She knows they are doing skilled work.
“I trust them with my child,” she said. “Then I hear what they make, and I don’t understand how the whole thing is supposed to last.”
Staffing shortages also reduce supply. A center may have licensed classroom space but no teacher to open the room. A provider may limit enrollment because staffing ratios must be met. A family may see a building and assume seats exist, when the actual limit is the workforce.
The state has programs, but the need is bigger
South Carolina does have child care and early learning supports.
First Steps 4K offers free, full-day four-year-old kindergarten to qualifying children and partners with more than 300 licensed child care centers and private schools across the state. The program also says First Steps 4K students and siblings ages 0 to 12 may be eligible for child care and after-school scholarships for up to 52 weeks.
South Carolina First Steps reported that in fiscal year 2025, it had 362 First Steps 4K classrooms and reached 64,678 children through its broader work.
Those programs matter. They are especially important for school readiness and for families whose 4-year-olds can get full-day care in a structured setting. But the hardest child care problem often arrives before age 4. Infant and toddler care is expensive, limited and difficult to staff. Parents need help long before kindergarten begins.
Monique remembers counting the months until her son would be old enough for more options.
“That’s a strange thing to say about your baby,” she said. “You’re loving them, and at the same time you’re calculating when care gets cheaper.”
That is why early childhood policy cannot start at 4K alone. Families need care from infancy through the elementary years, including after-school and summer care. A child turning 5 does not end the problem for a working parent. School gets out before many jobs do. Summer lasts longer than most paid leave.
The crisis is different in every county
Child care pressure looks different across South Carolina.
In Charleston and Greenville, high housing costs and competitive labor markets can make it harder for child care workers to live near the families they serve. In rural counties, fewer providers can mean long drives and limited choices. In growing suburbs, new neighborhoods can fill faster than care centers are built. In tourism and service economies, parents may work nights, weekends or rotating shifts that traditional child care schedules do not cover.
A statewide average cannot capture those differences. A parent in Columbia may have multiple centers nearby but still face cost barriers. A parent in the Pee Dee may have fewer centers to choose from. A parent in Myrtle Beach may work hours that do not match a standard 7-to-6 schedule. A parent in a small town may rely on one provider, one relative or one fragile arrangement.
When that arrangement breaks, there may not be a backup. Monique’s backup is her aunt, but her aunt works, too. Her neighbor can help sometimes. Her mother lives 90 minutes away. Her daughter’s school has after-care, but slots fill quickly. So Monique builds a patchwork. A patchwork can hold a family together. It can also tear without warning.
What South Carolina still has to decide
The child care crisis is not only about parents wanting convenience. It is about whether South Carolina can support the workforce it says it needs.
A state cannot grow its economy while treating child care as a private problem solved one kitchen table at a time. It cannot recruit businesses without asking who will care for workers’ children. It cannot expect parents to stay employed if care is unaffordable, unavailable or unreliable.
The solutions are not simple. More public funding can lower costs and stabilize providers. Better wages can help retain child care workers. Employer partnerships can help families whose work hours do not match traditional care. Expanded scholarships can keep low- and middle-income parents in the workforce. Local planning can identify child care deserts before growth makes them worse.
But the first step is treating child care as infrastructure. Roads get workers to jobs. Child care lets them leave the house. Monique does not use those words. She says it more plainly.
“I don’t need somebody to raise my kids,” Monique said. “I need a safe place for them so I can do what I’m supposed to do.”
Sometimes, the morning works. Sometimes, it just doesn’t.
That is how thin the line has become in South Carolina. A good day is not a day without stress. A good day is a day when the system holds just long enough for a parent to clock in.
