Colorado's child care gap is quietly costing employers $780 million a year

A licensed early-learning room. Weld County has roughly a third of a licensed seat for every child under six. Photo: Gautam Arora / Unsplash

A 2024 analysis by ReadyNation put the annual cost of Colorado's infant and toddler child care crisis at $2.7 billion. Of that, $780 million lands on employers as lost productivity. The rest is $1.52 billion in forgone earnings to parents and $358 million in lost tax revenue.

The same survey found two-thirds of Colorado working parents had been late, left early, missed full days or been distracted at work because of child care. More than a third had been reprimanded over it. Twenty percent were let go or fired. If you employ parents of small children, you are not deciding whether to spend money on this. You are deciding whether to keep spending it as turnover.

Weld is the hardest county in the state

The Common Sense Institute's Child Care Opportunity Index found 51 percent of Colorado is a child care desert, and only three of the state's 64 counties have enough licensed slots for their under-sixes. Among the ten most populous counties, Weld came last: an index score of 114, roughly 0.32 licensed seats per child under six, and families paying an average $1,396 a month per child — 24.8 percent of average monthly household income, the heaviest burden of the ten. Larimer averaged $1,274 a month, or 20.3 percent. Boulder topped the index at 162.

Statewide prices explain why. Center-based infant care ran $20,978 a year in 2024, toddler care $17,479, and care for a four-year-old $14,800. Infant care equals 14.3 percent of Colorado's median married-couple family income — roughly double the 7 percent federal affordability benchmark.

The assistance programme is freezing

Larimer County's Colorado Child Care Assistance Program enrolment freeze began in February 2024, estimated to affect 425 families and $2.2 million in lost annual earnings. By early 2026, roughly a third of Colorado counties had freezes. Statewide, children affected grew 130 percent between April and October 2025, from about 4,700 to about 11,000.

The Common Sense Institute projected that if 20 percent of affected parents reduce employment, Colorado loses 7,290 jobs and $1.1 billion in annual GDP by 2029. At 40 percent it is 14,564 jobs and $2.2 billion.

Universal preschool covers fifteen hours a week for four-year-olds. The expensive years — birth to three — are almost entirely on families, and therefore on you.

What universal preschool actually covers

Colorado's Universal Preschool programme launched in July 2023, funded largely by the nicotine tax voters approved as Proposition EE. In 2024-25 it served 43,398 four-year-olds — 68.2 percent of the eligible population — through 2,108 providers, on a $344 million appropriation.

Read the hours before assuming the problem is solved. Fifty-six percent of children got 15 hours a week; 22 percent got 30; 22 percent got 10. Colorado ranks third nationally for four-year-old enrolment but 29th for spending per child at $5,817. And UPK covers the year before kindergarten only. The birth-to-three window, where care costs $17,000 to $21,000 a year, is untouched.

FAMLI is now a predictable line item

Colorado's paid family and medical leave programme paid more than 135,000 claims and $687.7 million in its first full year, with an average weekly benefit of $914. The premium dropped to 0.88 percent of wages for 2026, split evenly — 0.44 percent employer, 0.44 percent employee. Employers with nine or fewer employees file quarterly but remit only the employee share. The maximum weekly benefit is $1,448.02 for 2026-27, and workers get up to 12 weeks, plus up to 12 more for a parent whose newborn is in intensive care.

For most small employers this now covers more of parental leave than a private policy would, which changes the question from whether to offer leave to whether to top it up.

The credits, and what Larimer just did

The Child Care Contribution Credit is 50 percent of a qualifying monetary gift to a licensed facility, capped at $100,000 a year, with a five-year carryforward — and it was extended through tax year 2037 in May 2026. There is also a 10 percent Employer Child Care Facility Investment Credit for employers running care incidental to their business, which in its last evaluated year was claimed by fourteen taxpayers statewide. Fourteen. Colorado's Employer-Based Child Care grant programme has also awarded up to $800,000 per employer for on-site or near-site facilities.

And in November 2025 Larimer County voters approved Ballot Measure 1B, a 0.25 percent sales tax projected to raise about $28 million a year for 20 years, going to tuition assistance, early-childhood workforce pay and facility expansion. Eighty percent is administered by the Early Childhood Council of Larimer County. Weld has no equivalent.

It is being done locally already. The Yoder Family of Companies, which runs ten automotive businesses around Greeley and Fort Collins with about 300 staff, opened a roughly 54-slot centre for employees' children in March 2024 and framed it plainly as recruitment and retention.