The child care industry provides well-established economic and child development benefits. When parents cannot work due to unmet child care needs, the size of the potential workforce declines, and local and state economies suffer. U.S. Census Bureau survey data collected between March 2023 and March 2024 suggest that, on average, nearly 15,500 New Hampshire residents ...
Limited access to affordable child care creates significant challenges for New Hampshire’s families and economy, and may hinder New Hampshire’s efforts to support a robust workforce.[1] While New Hampshire families requiring child care experienced challenges with availability, affordability, and quality of care before 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these challenges and highlighted the severity of ...
The Granite State is experiencing a long-predicted workforce shortage that is, in part, related to an aging New Hampshire population, and further exacerbated by fewer residents who are employed or looking for employment than were prior to the pandemic.[1] Future workforce constraints in key industries could be disproportionately severe due to a lack of qualified ...
State funding for local public education in New Hampshire comprises a significant component of both the State Budget and local public school budgets, and is the primary method through which resources for local public education are shared statewide. Federal funding typically constitutes a relatively small portion of school budgets, and locally-raised revenue, almost entirely from ...
Throughout New Hampshire, children of families facing income challenges have more limited access to many key opportunities than their peers in higher-income households. Free and reduced-price meal programs, which use low household incomes or certain other criteria to determine eligibility, provide detailed data on a local level that offers insight into the financial security of ...
The House version of the State Budget would significantly enhance funding for local education in New Hampshire. The proposal would deploy an additional $165.3 million to local public education over the biennium, directing additional ongoing aid primarily to communities with relatively low property values per student and high percentages of students eligible for free and ...