Child Care Video Statistics

Key takeaways

1. Child care centers, preschools and daycares made 22.8% of the on-topic videos among YouTube’s most-viewed ‘daycare’, ‘preschool tour’ and ‘daycare teacher’ results but drew 4.6% of their views; games and children’s shows set aside as off-topic drew 76.4% of all views (our read, Nov 7, 2026). (Mark Studios) See details
2. The 26 U.S. child care center channels in that sample uploaded 262 videos in the year to November 7, 2026, with a median of 36 views; only 13 of them posted at all. (Mark Studios) See details
3. All 9 titles in that sample that named a camera, CCTV or “caught” footage were news or bodycam stories about staff hurting children; no center’s own title mentioned a classroom camera or a parent live stream. (Mark Studios) See details
4. BLS counted 518,910 wage-and-salary childcare worker jobs in May 2025, at a median annual wage of $34,980, 68.6% of the median for all occupations. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) See details
5. Child Care Aware of America puts the 2025 U.S. average price of child care at $13,184 a year; in the Consumer Price Index, day care and preschool prices rose 40.3% from 2015 to 2025, against 35.8% for all items. (Child Care Aware of America and BLS) See details
6. HHS’s National Survey of Early Care and Education counted 117,000 centers serving children 5 and under in 2024, down from 121,000 in 2019, and 81,600 listed home-based providers. (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) See details
7. Florida DCF’s provider list showed 11,920 operating child care providers on November 5, 2026, including 760 in Palm Beach County, 751 in Broward and 96 in Martin (our count). (Mark Studios) See details
8. HHS’s 2024 rule capping CCDF family co-payments at 7 percent of income no longer applies: a rule published May 12, 2026 rescinded the 7 percent cap, effective July 13, 2026. (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) See details
9. The “90% of a child’s brain develops by age 5” line traces to Arizona’s First Things First, which wrote “eighty to 90 percent” in its 2011 annual report and a flat 90% by 2012; the measurement behind it is brain weight, about 88% of adult weight at age five. (First Things First and Delaware Journal of Public Health) See details

What does YouTube show when people search for daycare?

Mostly games and children's shows, not child care: in our YouTube Data API read of the top 200 results by views for each of 'daycare', 'preschool tour' and 'daycare teacher' on November 7, 2026, off-topic channels drew 76.4% of all views (our calculation). We read YouTube's own view-sorted search results for the three phrases, four pages of each, with no country filter, and classified every channel by hand from its own title, description and video text. It is one search on one day, not a census. The three lists held 562 unique videos from 402 channels, with 3,968,250,381 lifetime views in all.

Roblox, Minecraft and Five Nights at Freddy's 'Daycare Attendant' game videos made 154 of the videos in the November 7, 2026 read. Children's learning shows, cartoons, songs and kids' entertainment channels drew 33.6% of all views; the most-viewed video of all was a Ms Rachel preschool learning video with 298,201,521 views. The plain word 'daycare' was the hardest search for a center to show up in: 168 of its 200 results came from off-topic channels. Uploaders had set 122 of the videos as made for kids.

How much of it comes from child care centers themselves?

Many of the on-topic videos but a sliver of the views: child care centers, preschools and daycares made 22.8% of the on-topic videos in our YouTube Data API read of November 7, 2026 and drew 4.6% of their views (our calculation). Leaving out off-topic channels left 294 on-topic videos with 935,583,832 views. The class covers centers, preschools, daycares and family child care homes posting about their own program, including chains, franchise units, church and private-school preschools; we did not check any licence. The median operator video had 54,696 views, from 63 operator channels in all.

Many of the operators were not American. In the November 7, 2026 read, 31 of the operator videos came from preschools in India, many of them franchise units of chains such as EuroKids, Makoons and Bachpan. U.S. child care operators posted 28 of the on-topic videos and drew 0.8% of the on-topic views. U.S. chains and franchise units (KinderCare, Merryhill, Stratford, The Goddard School and The Learning Experience) posted 7 of them; KinderCare's brand spot 'It's More Than Daycare; It's KinderCare!' had 4,143,797 views, the most of any U.S. operator video. Home daycare providers, not centers, had the operators' biggest hits: their videos drew 21,210,289 views, and the most-viewed operator video of all was a home provider's short about making lunch for the children in her care, with 13,846,506 views.

Which phrase is searched changes who appears. In our November 7, 2026 read, operators posted 58 of the on-topic videos in the 'preschool tour' results, where parents comparing programs would look, but only 4 of the on-topic videos in the 'daycare' results. In the 'daycare teacher' results, TV, news and podcast channels posted 44 of the on-topic videos, most of them stories about staff accused of hurting children.

What are the most-viewed child care videos about?

Short emotional clips, teachers' classrooms and abuse stories, not centers' own tours: the most-viewed on-topic video in our YouTube Data API read of November 7, 2026 was a short clip on a re-post channel, 'This Daycare Helps This Kid By Doing This!', with 80,838,672 views (our calculation). The ten most-viewed channels drew 55.5% of the on-topic views. Teacher creators drew more views than centers did: Sara James, a kindergarten teacher, drew 79,929,013 views with her classroom shorts, and 33 of the teacher-creator videos came from kindergarten or grade-school teachers rather than preschool or daycare staff. Action-song and routine videos made by kindergarten teachers in the Philippines drew 70,048,150 views.

News, court and police bodycam channels posted 26 on-topic videos about abuse, neglect, injury or arrests at a daycare or preschool, and by title 28 on-topic videos were about such incidents. Every one of the 9 titles that named a camera, CCTV or 'caught' footage was a news or bodycam story about staff hurting children; no center's own title in the November 7, 2026 read mentioned a classroom camera or a parent live stream.

By title (our regex matches, every list read by hand), 35.7% of the on-topic videos in the November 7, 2026 read named a tour, walkthrough, virtual visit or set-up, but those videos drew only 1.9% of the on-topic views. 53 were classroom tours or set-ups, most of them by teachers and teacher trainers. 41 were about lessons, circle time, activities or teaching methods, 22 were day-in-the-life videos of teachers or classrooms, 13 were about naps, meals, diapers or routines and 12 were about a first day, drop-off or pick-up. 10 were about job interviews, hiring, pay or staff quitting, and 10 were admissions adverts or new-center promos, mostly from India. None was a how-to on starting or opening a child care business. 17 titles named pre-K or pre-primary and 8 named Montessori; only 2 named a public program, and none named Head Start. Only 1 named rules, licensing, ratios or inspections: an Indonesian family's short on how strict a Japanese daycare is.

Short videos won the views. In our November 7, 2026 read, videos of 60 seconds or less drew 56.1% of the on-topic views, and the median on-topic video ran 145 seconds. 47.6% of the on-topic videos were uploaded in 2024 or later. Channels placed in the U.S. by their own text or country setting made 54.8% of the on-topic videos. Only 2 on-topic channels named a Florida base in their own text, a Parkland preschool in Broward County and The Learning Experience in New Tampa, both child care operators; none named Palm Beach or Martin county. Operators had set 13 of their videos as made for kids, which turns off comments and personalized ads on those videos.

How often do U.S. child care centers post to YouTube?

Rarely, and to tiny audiences: the 26 U.S. child care center, preschool and daycare channels found in our YouTube Data API read of November 7, 2026 uploaded 262 videos in the year to that date, and the median upload had 36 views (our calculation from each channel's uploads playlist). 13 of the channels posted in that year, and 9 had not posted since before 2024. 82.8% of the year's uploads had fewer than 100 views.

Most of that posting came from organizations whose channels cover more than the preschool: a Lutheran church and school, a YMCA and a Christian school posted 64.1% of the year's uploads, most of them Sunday services, fitness classes and school events rather than anything about the preschool. The U.S. channels run only for a child care program, with no church, school, YMCA or agency behind them, posted 61 videos between them in the year to November 7, 2026, and 12 of those channels posted nothing; 91.8% of their uploads ran 60 seconds or less. KinderCare, the largest operator, posted 29 videos in the year. The median U.S. child care channel had 329.5 subscribers. Neither Florida channel posted in the year: The Learning Experience New Tampa last uploaded in December 2021, and the Parkland preschool's channel last uploaded on August 14, 2013.

How many childcare workers, preschool teachers and center directors are there?

BLS's Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey estimated 518,910 wage-and-salary jobs for childcare workers (SOC 39-9011) in the United States in May 2025 (BLS OEWS), 478,780 for preschool teachers, except special education (SOC 25-2011) (BLS OEWS), and 73,660 for preschool and child care center administrators (SOC 11-9031) (BLS OEWS). The childcare worker code is broader than centers: it also covers nannies and babysitters, and the preschool teacher code includes public school pre-K teachers. OEWS counts only payroll jobs at establishments, so it leaves out the self-employed (most family child care home owners) and workers hired directly by private households.

About half of those childcare worker jobs are in the child care industry itself. OEWS put 269,970 childcare worker jobs in child care services (NAICS 624400) in May 2025 (BLS OEWS), 52.0% of the national total (our calculation from BLS OEWS); the rest are in schools, religious organizations, recreation programs, agencies and other industries. The same industry employed 347,720 preschool teachers (BLS OEWS) and 60,540 center administrators (BLS OEWS).

Counts that include the self-employed are higher. BLS's Employment Projections put childcare worker employment at 1,010.3 thousand jobs in 2025, counting the self-employed and private-household workers (BLS Employment Projections), and 24.2% of childcare workers were self-employed (BLS), against 5.8% of all U.S. workers (BLS). Only 0.9% of preschool teachers were self-employed (BLS). The Current Population Survey, which asks households about each person's main job, counted 1,106 thousand employed childcare workers in 2025 (BLS CPS).

What do childcare workers and preschool teachers earn?

Half of U.S. childcare workers earned less than $34,980 a year in May 2025, or $16.82 an hour, according to BLS OEWS (BLS OEWS). That median was 68.6% of the $50,980 median for all occupations (BLS OEWS) (our calculation). One in ten childcare workers earned less than $24,260 and one in ten more than $46,010 (BLS OEWS).

Preschool teachers (SOC 25-2011, including public school pre-K) had a median of $38,140 a year, or $18.34 an hour, in May 2025 (BLS OEWS), 74.8% of the all-occupation median (our calculation from BLS OEWS). Preschool and child care center administrators had a median of $59,300 (BLS OEWS). All of these are wage-and-salary figures; OEWS does not report what self-employed family child care providers earn.

How many childcare workers are there in Florida, Miami and Port St. Lucie, and what do they earn?

OEWS estimated 21,760 childcare worker jobs in Florida in May 2025, with a median annual wage of $34,210 (BLS OEWS). That is 71.4% of Florida's $47,880 median for all occupations (BLS OEWS) (our calculation). Florida had more preschool teacher jobs than childcare worker jobs: 35,740, at a median of $35,860 (BLS OEWS). The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro area covers Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties; the Port St. Lucie metro area covers St. Lucie and Martin counties. BLS published every figure below for both metro areas; none was suppressed.

Will there be more childcare jobs by 2035?

BLS projects childcare worker employment to change by -2.0% from 2025 to 2035 (BLS Employment Projections), while total U.S. employment grows 3.5% (BLS). Turnover still means steady hiring: BLS expects an average of 150.3 thousand childcare worker openings a year over the decade, mostly to replace workers who leave the occupation or the labor force (BLS). Preschool teacher employment is projected to grow 4.5% (BLS) and preschool and child care center administrator employment to change by -3.1% (BLS). These are model-based projections published in August 2026.

Who are childcare workers?

93.2% of employed childcare workers were women in 2025, according to the Current Population Survey (BLS CPS), against 47.1% of all employed people (BLS CPS). 28.3% of childcare workers were Hispanic or Latino and 16.8% were Black or African American (BLS CPS). Among preschool and kindergarten teachers, a CPS group that also includes public school kindergarten teachers, 97.1% were women (BLS CPS). The CPS counts people by their main job, including the self-employed and nannies and babysitters in private homes.

How fast have day care and preschool prices risen?

The Consumer Price Index for day care and preschool rose 40.3% from 2015 to 2025, from an annual average of 275.381 to 386.417 (BLS CPI) (our calculation), while the all-items index rose 35.8%, from 237.017 to 321.943 (BLS CPI), so day care prices outpaced prices overall. Since 2019 the day care index is up 27.4% from 303.268 (BLS CPI) and all items 25.9% from 255.657 (BLS CPI) (our calculations). Day care and preschool prices rose 5.1% in 2025 (BLS CPI) and were 3.1% higher in September 2026 than a year earlier (BLS CPI). The index tracks the change in tuition and fees urban consumers pay; it is not a price level.

How many child care businesses are there in the U.S.?

BLS's Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages counted an average of 79,225 private child day care establishments (NAICS 624410) in 2025, employing 992,255 people (BLS QCEW). In 2019 the counts were 73,411 establishments and 919,521 jobs (BLS QCEW), so establishments rose 7.9% and jobs 7.9% (our calculation from BLS QCEW). The Census Bureau's County Business Patterns counted 82,162 child day care establishments with paid employees in 2023 (U.S. Census Bureau, CBP), with 1,045,052 employees in March (U.S. Census Bureau). NAICS 624410 covers child care centers, preschools and nursery schools run as businesses or nonprofits, Head Start programs separate from schools, and family child care homes that have payroll; it excludes public school pre-K run by school districts.

Most home-based providers have no employees, so they appear in a different count. Census Nonemployer Statistics counted 537,849 child care businesses with no paid employees in 2024 (U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics), down from 564,700 in 2019 (U.S. Census Bureau), a change of -4.8% (our calculation). They took in $11,698,135 thousand in 2024 (U.S. Census Bureau), an average of $21,750 each (our calculation). This count is built from tax returns: it includes family child care homes run by one person and self-employed babysitters and nannies who file a business return, so it is not a count of licensed homes. In 2023 there were 533,596 such businesses (U.S. Census Bureau), or 6.5 for every establishment with paid employees (our calculation from Census CBP and Nonemployer Statistics).

How big is a typical child care center?

Private child day care establishments averaged 12.5 jobs each in 2025 (our calculation from BLS QCEW), and 79.0% of establishments with paid employees had fewer than 20 employees in 2023 (our calculation from Census CBP).

Pay at those establishments is low but has risen fast. Average annual pay at private child day care establishments was $33,325 in 2025, up 39.1% from $23,953 in 2019 (BLS QCEW) (our calculation), against a 25.9% rise in the all-items CPI over the same years. QCEW average pay counts part-time jobs as whole jobs.

How much revenue does the child care industry take in, and from what?

U.S. child care establishments with paid employees took in $58,427,444 thousand in 2022, according to the Economic Census (U.S. Census Bureau, Economic Census), up 41.9% from $41,186,279 thousand in 2017 (U.S. Census Bureau) (our calculation, not adjusted for inflation). Tax-exempt (nonprofit) establishments accounted for $19,840,769 thousand of the 2022 total (U.S. Census Bureau). The Census Bureau's Annual Integrated Economic Survey put 2024 receipts of child day care employer firms (NAICS 6244) at $65,546,955 thousand (U.S. Census Bureau, AIES); the survey did not publish an advertising expense figure for the industry, so there is no federal estimate of what child care businesses spend on advertising.

Center care is the main product. Child care center services brought in $41,820,124 thousand in 2022 (U.S. Census Bureau), 71.6% of industry receipts (U.S. Census Bureau). Pre-primary grade instructional programs made up 10.5% (U.S. Census Bureau) and in-home child care services 4.3% (U.S. Census Bureau). Nonprofits also reported $5,184,792 thousand in government contributions, gifts and grants (U.S. Census Bureau), 26.1% of their receipts (U.S. Census Bureau). These lines record what was sold, not who paid: subsidy payments made on a family's behalf sit inside the service lines. The Census Bureau publishes no type-of-payer or class-of-customer table for child care, so the split between parent fees and government payments is not available from the Economic Census.

How many child care businesses are in Florida and Palm Beach, Broward and Martin counties?

BLS QCEW counted an average of 4,493 private child day care establishments in Florida in 2025, employing 60,536 people at an average annual pay of $33,269 (BLS QCEW). In 2019 the state had 4,298 establishments and 58,174 jobs at an average of $22,903 (BLS QCEW): establishments rose 4.5%, jobs 4.1% and average pay 45.3% (our calculation). County Business Patterns counted 4,651 Florida establishments with paid employees in 2023 (U.S. Census Bureau, CBP). Florida also had 34,300 child care businesses with no employees in 2024 (U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics) and 32,708 in 2023 (U.S. Census Bureau), or 7.0 for every employer establishment (our calculation). Florida child care establishments with paid employees took in $3,829,998 thousand in 2022 (U.S. Census Bureau, Economic Census).

Martin County's 2022 Economic Census receipts are printed as zero, which means withheld, not none. Small county counts move with single openings and closures.

How many young children are in child care, and in which settings?

Parents of 55% of U.S. children age 5 and under who were not yet in kindergarten reported at least one weekly nonparental care arrangement in 2023, according to the National Center for Education Statistics' Early Childhood Program Participation survey (NCES). The survey, fielded January to August 2023, represents 20,024,000 children from birth through age 5 not yet in kindergarten (NCES). Among children in weekly care, 66% attended center-based care (day care centers, Head Start, preschools, pre-K and other early childhood programs), 34% were cared for by a relative and 17% by a nonrelative in a private home (NCES). A child can have more than one arrangement, so the shares overlap. For children ages 3 to 5 in weekly care, the center-based share was 85% (NCES).

The share in weekly care was higher before the pandemic. NCES put it at about 59% of children age 5 and younger in 2019 (NCES), and it cautions that survey changes call for care when comparing rounds. An older Census Bureau series measured something narrower: in spring 2011 the Survey of Income and Program Participation found 23.5% of children under 5 regularly cared for in an organized care facility (a day care center, nursery or preschool, Head Start or school) (Census Bureau). Census changed its child care questions in 2014, so that series cannot be extended with newer data.

How do parents choose a child care program?

In 2023, parents of 88% of children in weekly nonparental care rated the reliability of the arrangement “very important” when choosing it, more than any other factor, followed by the availability of the care provider at 77% (NCES). Parents of 40% rated recommendations from friends or family very important, and parents of 31% said the same of ratings on a website (NCES, Table A-6). In the 2019 round the same items stood at 45% for recommendations and 27% for website ratings (NCES, Table 6). NCES did not test that change, so read it as a direction, not a measured shift.

A stand-alone building is the most common home for center-based care. In 2023, a building of its own was the most common location of a child's primary center-based arrangement, at 47%, ahead of public schools and places of worship (NCES). Among families with any out-of-pocket cost, the average cost of center-based primary care was $21.32 per child per hour (NCES).

Most families who look for care have trouble finding it. Parents of 72% of children whose parents searched for care in 2023 reported at least a little difficulty (NCES). Among children whose parents had difficulty, cost and a lack of open slots were each the primary reason for 34% (NCES).

How many child care centers and home-based providers are there?

The 2024 National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE), run for the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation at HHS's Administration for Children and Families, counted 117,000 U.S. centers serving at least one child age 5 and under not yet in kindergarten (OPRE). Those centers had 9 million children ages 0 to 13 enrolled (OPRE), an average of about 77 children per center (our calculation from OPRE's NSECE figures). The 2019 survey counted 121,000 such centers, and OPRE found its change from 2012 not statistically significant (OPRE).

Chains are a small slice of the center market. In 2024, 6.0% of these centers were for-profit franchises or chains, a larger share than in 2019; independent for-profits, not-for-profits and government-run centers make up the rest (OPRE). Half of centers, 50.2%, received some funding from CCDF child care subsidies (OPRE). Centers also had more empty seats: capacity utilization for 2-year-olds, enrollment as a share of enrollment plus vacancies, was 86.2% in 2024, lower than in 2019 (OPRE).

Home-based care involves far more providers but is harder to count. The NSECE found 81,600 listed home-based providers in 2024, meaning providers on state or national administrative lists such as licensed family child care homes (OPRE). The number of listed providers had already fallen 25 percent from 2012 to 2019 (OPRE). Another 892,000 unlisted paid providers, found through a household screen rather than any list, cared for children under 13 in their homes in 2024 (OPRE).

The 2024 NSECE also counted about 1,020,000 teachers and lead teachers in center classrooms serving children 5 and under (OPRE). That is a headcount of people in classroom roles from a provider survey, not the BLS occupation estimates in the workforce section.

How many children get CCDF child care subsidies, in the U.S. and in Florida?

The Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) served an average of 1,623,000 children from 994,000 families a month in federal fiscal year 2023, according to preliminary data from HHS's Office of Child Care (ACF Office of Child Care). That was about 13.1% more children than the 1,434,900 in fiscal 2022's final data (ACF Office of Child Care) (our calculation). In Florida, CCDF served 112,900 children from 76,200 families in an average month of fiscal 2023 (ACF Office of Child Care), up 14.6% from 98,500 children in fiscal 2022 (ACF Office of Child Care) and 7.0% of the national total (our calculations). These are rounded “adjusted” counts from states' ACF-801 reports and cover only children funded through CCDF.

Where do subsidized children get care, and what does CCDF pay providers?

Centers care for most subsidized children. In fiscal 2023, 71% of CCDF children nationally were in child care centers (ACF, Table 3), against 94% in Florida (ACF, Table 3). Nationally, 85% were in licensed or regulated settings; most of the rest were with providers legally operating without regulation, such as relatives (ACF, Table 4).

CCDF paid centers an average of $703 a month per child across all ages in fiscal 2023 and $970 a month for infants under 1 (ACF, Table 15). Those amounts are what the state paid the provider and leave out the family's co-payment. Among families who paid a co-payment, the mean co-payment was 5% of family income nationally (ACF, Table 17).

States also tell parents about their options. In fiscal 2023, 52 States and Territories used electronic media for CCDF consumer education (ACF, Table 8). Florida used print materials, resource and referral counseling, mass media and electronic media, and reported 257,327 families receiving consumer education, a count that is not limited to subsidized families (ACF, Table 8).

What did the 2024 CCDF rule require, and does the co-payment cap still apply?

The federal co-payment cap set in 2024 no longer applies. The final rule HHS published on March 1, 2024 required States and Territories to keep CCDF family co-payments at no more than 7 percent of family income (Federal Register, 89 FR 15366). Before that rule, average co-payments exceeded 7 percent of family income in 11 States, HHS wrote (Federal Register). The rule HHS published on May 12, 2026 rescinds the 7 percent cap, the requirement to fund some care through grants or contracts, and the requirements to pay providers prospectively and based on enrollment (Federal Register, 91 FR 25796). It took effect on July 13, 2026 (Federal Register).

States may keep those policies on their own. As of March 2026, 31 states, plus the District of Columbia and five territories, limited co-payments to 7 percent or less of family income under their CCDF Plans (Federal Register). On payments to providers, HHS wrote in 2024 that under their 2022-2024 CCDF Plans only eight States and Territories paid providers prospectively and 36 paid based on enrollment rather than attendance (Federal Register). With both federal requirements rescinded, those payment rules are again each state's choice. Enacted federal CCDF funding for fiscal 2026 is $12.381 billion (Federal Register).

How many children is Head Start funded to serve, nationally and in Florida?

Head Start was funded to serve 666,923 children and pregnant women in fiscal year 2025, according to the Office of Head Start (Office of Head Start). That was 48,950 fewer funded slots than the 715,873 in fiscal 2024 (Office of Head Start) (our calculation). Funded enrollment counts slots, not children: because of turnover, programs serve more children over a program year than they have slots. About 97.0% of funded Head Start Preschool services were in center-based settings in 2024-2025 (Office of Head Start).

In fiscal 2025, Florida had 27,777 funded Head Start Preschool slots and 9,487 Early Head Start slots, not counting tribal and migrant programs (Office of Head Start), 37,264 in all (our calculation). Federal operations funding in Florida was $316,019,691 for Head Start Preschool and $196,904,259 for Early Head Start (Office of Head Start), $512,923,950 combined, or about $13,765 per funded slot (our calculations from Office of Head Start data). Early Head Start slots cost more than preschool slots, so that average mixes two different programs.

Head Start programs nationwide employed and contracted with 252,169 staff in the 2024-2025 program year (Office of Head Start). They reported staff turnover of 14.7%, which the Office of Head Start links to some programs' trouble reaching full enrollment (Office of Head Start).

What do parents pay for child care in the United States?

Child Care Aware of America (CCAoA), an advocacy and resource-and-referral association, put the national average annual price of child care at $13,184 for 2025 (CCAoA). It surveyed state Child Care Resource and Referral agencies and state child care agencies in January 2026, for data covering December 2025 to March 2026, and obtained prices for 47 states (CCAoA methods). Colorado, New Mexico, South Carolina and Washington, DC had no price data. The national figure averages three weighting methods across infants and 4-year-olds in centers and family child care homes. The same average was $13,128 for 2024 (CCAoA), and $11,582 for 2023 (CCAoA).

The federal source is the U.S. Department of Labor Women's Bureau's National Database of Childcare Prices (NDCP). It records county median market-rate prices for full-time care for one child, before any subsidy, drawn from state market rate surveys. Its newest year is 2022. In 2022, annual prices for one child ran from $6,552 to $15,600 across care settings and age groups, nationwide (DOL Women's Bureau). The November 2024 update added 2019 to 2022 prices and analysed 2,512 U.S. counties (DOL Women's Bureau). These are 2022 dollars as published.

Care.com, which sells child care search and booking services, publishes the rates that centers post on its site. Its posted 2025 average for one infant was $332 a week at a daycare center (Care.com) and $323 a week at what Care.com calls a “family care center” (Care.com). Over a full year, the daycare rate comes to $17,264, our calculation from Care.com's weekly figure. Those are listing rates on a seller's platform, not prices parents reported paying.

How much of a family's income does child care take?

In 2022 U.S. families spent between 8.9 percent and 16 percent of median family income on full-day care for one child, depending on the setting and the child's age, the Women's Bureau found (DOL Women's Bureau). CCAoA's 2025 national average price equals 10% of the median income of a married couple with children and 33% of a single parent's median income (CCAoA), using Census American Community Survey incomes. For 2024 the single-parent share was 35% (CCAoA). For comparison, HHS's 2024 subsidy rule capped family co-payments at 7% of income.

The U.S. Treasury's September 2021 report on child care supply, which draws on earlier studies, says families with children under 5 that paid for child care spent an average of 13 percent of family income on it in 2017 (Treasury). It adds that more than 60 percent of working families spend more than HHS's 7% benchmark on center-based care (Treasury).

Care.com's own survey asks parents directly. Its 2026 Cost of Care Report polled 3,000 U.S. parents of children 14 or younger who pay for professional child care, on November 30, 2025, through DKC Analytics and the Pollfish platform, with no weighting (Care.com). The average parent said child care took 20% of household income (Care.com), 78% said they spend at least a tenth of it (Care.com), and 31% said they were dipping into savings to pay for care (Care.com). Care.com sells into this market, and the answers are self-reported.

How do center prices compare with family child care homes?

Centers cost more. In CCAoA's 2025 simple average of state averages, full-time infant care cost $15,636 a year in a center and $11,673 in a family child care home (CCAoA). By our calculation from those two figures, the center price is 34.0% higher. CCAoA's method weights every state equally; its space-weighted method gives a lower center figure.

Location matters as much as setting. The NDCP's first release, which covered 2018, found the median yearly price of center-based infant care was $7,461 in small counties (under 100,000 people), or 12.3% of median family income, and $15,417 in very large counties (1 million or more), or 19.3% of median family income (DOL Women's Bureau, Table 1). Our calculation puts the very-large-county price at 2.07 times the small-county price. Home-based infant care in very large counties had a median of $9,892, or 12.4% of median family income (DOL Women's Bureau), which is 35.8% below the center price there, by our calculation. These are 2018 dollars; DOL's brief also gives 2022-dollar equivalents.

What does child care cost in Florida?

CCAoA's 2024 Affordability Analysis lists Florida's average annual price of full-time center care at $13,011 for an infant, $11,461 for a toddler and $9,409 for a 4-year-old (CCAoA, Table I). Family child care homes charged $11,201 for an infant and $8,592 for a 4-year-old (CCAoA, Table II). Florida did not answer CCAoA's survey that year, so these figures come from the state's most recent Market Rate Survey. By our calculation, Florida centers charged 16.2% more than family child care homes for infants and 9.5% more for 4-year-olds.

In 2024, Florida's center infant price took 11.5% of the state's married-couple median family income and 31.6% of single-parent median income (CCAoA, Table III).

The DOL Women's Bureau also publishes 2022 county medians for Palm Beach, Broward and Martin counties. They appear only in its spreadsheet and interactive county map, which our verification script cannot read, so this page does not print them.

Does child care cost more than college tuition or rent?

In some states, yes, by CCAoA's measure. For 2024, the average annual price of infant care in a center was higher than in-state public university tuition in 41 states plus DC (CCAoA). For 2023 the count was 39 states plus DC (CCAoA). CCAoA's May 2026 release says only that “in the majority of states, infant care costs more than in-state public college tuition” for 2025 (CCAoA). It does not give a count.

In Florida the gap is wide. CCAoA puts average in-state tuition and fees at a four-year public university at $6,362.22 (CCAoA, Table XII), and it says the 2024 center infant price was 104.50% higher (CCAoA, Table XII).

Against housing, center care for two children (an infant and a 4-year-old) cost more than median rent in every state with 2025 price data and more than mortgage payments in 39 of them (CCAoA). DOL found that in some counties the 2022 median price of center-based infant care was more than a year of rent at the national median, which it put at $15,216 (DOL Women's Bureau). The top of DOL's 2022 national price range was $384 more than that rent figure, by our calculation.

How fast are child care prices rising?

CCAoA says child care prices rose 23% from 2021 to 2025, close to the 24% rise in overall prices (CCAoA). Its earlier edition found a 29% rise from 2020 to 2024, against 22% for overall prices (CCAoA). By our calculation, CCAoA's national average rose 13.8% from 2023 to 2025 and 0.4% from 2024 to 2025. Those are nominal dollars, and the states with data change from year to year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' consumer price index for day care and preschool rose 27.4% from 2019 to 2025.

What does it cost to run a child care center?

Labor is most of the bill and margins are thin. The Treasury's 2021 report, citing a Center for American Progress cost model, says wages are at least 50-60 percent of a provider's expenses on U.S. averages (Treasury). It says most for-profit child care facilities run on profit margins that are usually less than 1 percent (Treasury), so a month or two of empty places can wipe out a year's margin. The report cites an estimate that the U.S. child care services market was worth $60 billion in 2019 (Treasury). It is also a fragmented market: the 10 largest providers, led by KinderCare and Learning Care Group, cared for less than 6 percent of children (Treasury).

What tax help is there for child care costs in 2025 and 2026?

For tax year 2025, the federal Child and Dependent Care Credit can be up to 35% of work-related care expenses (IRS Publication 503). The expense limit is $3,000 for one qualifying person and $6,000 for two or more (IRS Publication 503). The rate falls as income rises and reaches 20% for adjusted gross income over $43,000 (IRS Publication 503, Table 2). By our calculation, the largest 2025 credit is $1,050 for one child and $2,100 for two or more at the lowest incomes, and $600 for one child at the 20% rate.

From tax year 2026, the maximum credit rate rises to 50% of qualifying expenses, with the same expense limits (IRS). That makes the largest credit $1,500 for one child and $3,000 for two or more, by our calculation; the rate still phases down with income.

An employer dependent care assistance program, or dependent care FSA, let employees exclude up to $5,000 a year from income in 2025 (IRS Publication 503). For 2026 the limit rose to $7,500 (IRS Publication 15-B), a 50% increase by our calculation. Money excluded through an FSA reduces the expenses that can count toward the credit.

How do the main child care price sources compare?

The sources measure different things. DOL reports county medians before subsidies, CCAoA reports averages of state averages, and Care.com reports listing rates on its own platform and what its survey respondents say they spend. Read them side by side, not as one series.

How short-staffed and under-enrolled are U.S. child care programs?

More than half are below capacity. In NAEYC’s January 2025 workforce survey, 55% of child care center directors and family child care owner/operators said their program was under-enrolled relative to its preferred capacity (NAEYC). NAEYC, the national association of early childhood educators, ran the survey online from January 6 to 27, 2025; 10,066 people working in centers, family child care homes, Head Start, faith-based and public school programs answered, and NAEYC weighted 9,883 of them by state. It is a self-selected sample, not a random one.

Staffing and price, not demand, were the reasons. Among under-enrolled programs, the top answers were that parents can’t afford to enroll (41%) (NAEYC), that pay is too low to recruit and keep qualified staff (37%) (NAEYC) and that the program does not have enough staff (36%) (NAEYC). A lack of demand was the least-chosen reason, at 7% (NAEYC). A child care software seller found much the same: in Procare Solutions’ 2026 Child Care Business Trends Report, 41% of centers were operating under capacity (Procare). Procare sells center management software and a parent app; its survey drew nearly 5,000 early childhood professionals, and it did not publish field dates.

Programs are paying more and staff are tiring. In the same NAEYC survey, 60% of program administrators across all settings had raised wages or salaries in the past year (NAEYC), 47% of all respondents said their burnout had worsened (NAEYC), and 56% knew of at least one program in their community that had closed in the past year (NAEYC).

Fewer educators said they might leave in 2026 than in 2025. In January 2025, 26% of NAEYC’s respondents said they were considering leaving the early childhood field in the next year (NAEYC). In NAEYC’s January 2026 survey (fielded January 8 to 26, 2026; 7,078 responses, 7,045 analysed), the share was 22% (NAEYC). That is 4 percentage points lower by our calculation from the two NAEYC surveys, but the two samples are different self-selected groups, so the drop is not a measured trend.

Florida programs reported more under-enrollment than the nation. NAEYC’s Florida brief uses all 360 Florida responses to the January 2025 survey, 138 of them from center directors and family child care owner/operators. In Florida, 63% of program leaders said they were under-enrolled, against 55% nationally (NAEYC), and 61% had raised tuition in the past year (NAEYC). Florida respondents were less likely to report rising burnout: 40%, against 47% nationally (NAEYC). The Florida sample is small and unweighted.

What do early educators earn in Florida and nationally?

Florida’s early educators earned a median of $12.02 an hour in 2022, according to the 2024 Early Childhood Workforce Index from UC Berkeley’s Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) (CSCCE). The national median was $13.07 an hour (CSCCE), so Florida’s was 8.0% lower by our calculation from CSCCE’s figures. CSCCE builds these numbers from the Census Bureau’s 2022 American Community Survey and counts child care workers in centers and homes, nannies, the self-employed, preschool teachers, teaching assistants and directors. That is a wider group than the BLS wage survey in the workforce section above, which leaves out the self-employed, so the two sets of medians differ.

Within that workforce, Florida child care workers had a 2022 median of $11.54 an hour (CSCCE); nationally, child care workers had a median of $11.81 (CSCCE). Across all occupations, the Florida median was $20.43 an hour (CSCCE), so a Florida early educator at the median earned 58.8% of what the median Florida worker earned, by our calculation. Nationally, CSCCE says the median early care and education wage falls below 97 percent of all other occupations (CSCCE).

The pay does not cover a basic budget. CSCCE puts Florida’s 2022 early educator median 28% below the MIT living wage for a single adult with no children (CSCCE). The poverty rate of Florida’s early care and education workforce was 12.3% (CSCCE), and 50% of Florida early educator households took part in at least one public safety net program such as the EITC, SNAP or Medicaid (CSCCE). CSCCE counts Florida’s early childhood teaching workforce at 89,200 people (CSCCE).

How many children live in child care deserts?

Nearly half. The Center for American Progress (CAP), a policy think tank, estimates that 46 percent of U.S. children under age 6 lived in a licensed child care desert in 2025 (Center for American Progress), down from 51 percent in 2018 (Center for American Progress). CAP counts an area as a desert when it has more than three children under 6 for every licensed child care slot, or no licensed care at all; informal care by relatives and neighbours is not counted. The shortage is worst in the country: in remote rural areas, 70 percent of young children live in a licensed desert (Center for American Progress).

Florida does better than the nation on this measure. CAP’s state table puts 34.5% of Florida children under 6 in a licensed child care desert in 2025 (Center for American Progress), 11.5 percentage points below the national share by our calculation, and 3.9% of Florida children under 6 in areas with no licensed supply at all (Center for American Progress).

The often-quoted line that half of Americans live in a child care desert comes from CAP’s December 2018 report, which counted all residents, not only children: 51 percent of Americans lived in census tracts classified as child care deserts (Center for American Progress). CAP’s 2026 report measures children under 6 instead, so the 2018 and 2025 figures above are the closer comparison.

What do parents say about finding and paying for child care?

Most say child care shapes their work. In a Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) survey run by the polling firm Cygnal on July 22-24, 2025, 72.0% of 1,215 registered-voter parents of children under 5 said they or someone close to them had turned down a job, passed on a promotion, cut hours or stopped working for lack of affordable, reliable child care (Bipartisan Policy Center). Only 25.2% of these parents used formal child care outside the home, such as a daycare or church program (Bipartisan Policy Center), and 15.6% named the inability to find child care as one of their biggest challenges (Bipartisan Policy Center). In BPC’s earlier poll with Morning Consult (October 11-17, 2019; 800 parents of children under 5 who pay for care), 54% said it was difficult to find quality child care within their budget (Bipartisan Policy Center).

Voters tie child care to the cost of living. In a national poll of 1,000 likely voters by Impact Research for First Five Years Fund, an early childhood advocacy group, on July 6-12, 2026, 82% said the cost of child care is part of the affordability crisis (First Five Years Fund). Among parents who pay for care, 38% listed it as one of their two biggest cost problems, behind housing and groceries (First Five Years Fund). Family is not the fallback many assume: 58% of parents in the poll said they do not rely on family or friends for child care at all (First Five Years Fund).

Parents trust their own provider and still want to see what happens in the room. In a March 6-17, 2025 online poll of 600 U.S. parents of children ages 0-5, run by Lake Research Partners and Bellwether Research for NAEYC and the parents’ group MomsRising (with an oversample of 124 Florida parents), Seventy-two percent said they generally trust child care providers (NAEYC and MomsRising) and 81 percent said they trust their own child care provider (NAEYC and MomsRising). At the same time, 45 percent said parents should have access to know which books are being read in their child’s program (NAEYC and MomsRising). The panel was not a probability sample, so no margin of error applies.

What does the child care shortage cost the economy?

ReadyNation puts the cost of the U.S. infant-toddler child care crisis at $122 billion a year in lost earnings, productivity and tax revenue, in a 2023 estimate (ReadyNation). ReadyNation is a business-leader advocacy group within the Council for a Strong America. Its 2018 study put the cost at $57 billion (ReadyNation); the new figure is 2.1 times the old one by our calculation, in dollars not adjusted for inflation. The 2023 estimate rests on a December 2022 survey of 806 working parents of children under 3, in which 85 percent of primary caregivers said child care problems hurt their effort or time at work (ReadyNation). CAP’s April 2026 report puts the cost of missing licensed care, for all young children, at $172 billion a year (Center for American Progress).

In Florida, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation and the Florida Chamber Foundation estimate that insufficient child care costs the state’s economy $5.38 billion a year, based on a parent survey and model run in March and April 2023 (U.S. Chamber Foundation). Of that, child care-related turnover and absenteeism cost Florida employers $3.47 billion a year (U.S. Chamber Foundation) and the state misses $911 million a year in tax revenue (U.S. Chamber Foundation). In the same survey, 78% of Florida parents of children under six paid for child care (U.S. Chamber Foundation). The Chamber Foundation publishes state estimates rather than one national total; its 2021 round of Untapped Potential state studies found single-state losses of up to $10 billion a year (U.S. Chamber Foundation).

How do child care centers communicate with parents, by the software sellers’ own numbers?

Mostly through apps, by the sellers’ own counts. In Procare’s 2026 trends report, 78% of child care leaders said they use child care management software (Procare) and 65% of teachers named communication tools as the most valuable software feature (Procare). Procare reached its respondents as a software seller, so these shares likely run higher than for all centers. Procare also says its parent app passed 10 million downloads on Apple’s App Store and Google Play by August 2025 (Procare), and that educators had shared over 1.3 billion “moments” (updates, photos and videos) with parents through it (Procare). Downloads are not active users.

Lillio (formerly HiMama), another seller of child care software and a parent app, surveyed over 1,300 early childhood professionals for its 2024 Industry Snapshot, most of them in the United States and the rest in Canada and other countries; Lillio did not publish field dates. In that survey, 48% of centers preferred digital communication apps for talking to families (Lillio), and increasing enrollment and revenue was the top priority for 2024, named by 31% (Lillio).

Tours convert well once a family shows up. LineLeader (formerly ChildcareCRM), which sells enrollment software to centers, reported from its own users’ data that the share of families moving from a completed tour to the waitlist or registration rose from 59% in 2016 (LineLeader) to 76% in 2021 (LineLeader). These are customers of an enrollment tool, not a random sample of centers. brightwheel, the other large parent-app seller, publishes satisfaction percentages on its marketing pages without a sample size or survey dates, so we leave them out.

How much screen time do child care standards allow?

None for children ages 2 and younger, and no more than 1 hour per day for children ages 2 to 5, counting care and home together, under standard 2.2.0.3 of Caring for Our Children (CFOC), the national health and safety standards for early care and education published by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Public Health Association and the National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care and Early Education (CFOC 2.2.0.3). Video-chatting with family does not count. CFOC is a recommended standard, not a law: each state decides what goes into its licensing rules. The current wording dates from a revision CFOC records as October 12, 2017 (CFOC). Before that, the standard held children two and older to thirty minutes per week of screen time in care, as CFOC's March 2012 clarification restates it (CFOC).

The same standard says devices should not be used during meal or snack time or nap and rest times, and that any digital media offered should be free of advertising and brand placement (CFOC 2.2.0.3). CFOC tells caregivers to ask parents about home media use, because its 1-hour limit covers the whole day.

CFOC's daily limit comes from the AAP's 2016 statement "Media and Young Minds", which advised limiting screen use for children aged 2 to 5 to 1 hour per day of high-quality programming (AAP, 2016). The AAP replaced that statement in January 2026. Its new statement makes limits optional and family-specific; where families want a number, it suggests under 1 hour a day for toddlers and preschoolers (AAP, 2026). The last readable copy of the CFOC standard (an Internet Archive capture from September 2025, before the page began returning errors) still reflects the 2016 limit.

How much screen time do children get in child care?

Preschool-aged children in home-based child care watched 2.4 hours of television on an average day, against 0.4 hours in centers, in a telephone survey of licensed programs in Michigan, Washington, Florida and Massachusetts published in Pediatrics in 2009 (Pediatrics, Christakis and Garrison). That is 6 times as much, our calculation from the two published averages. Toddlers in home-based programs watched 1.6 hours a day, against 0.1 hours in centers. After adjusting for other program traits, the authors estimate centers averaged 1.84 fewer hours of television a day for preschoolers (Pediatrics).

Child care adds only part of a child's daily screen time. In the federal Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (a sample of 8,950 children representing about 4 million), preschoolers averaged 4.1 hours of screen time a day, 3.6 hours at home and 0.4 hours in child care, according to Tandon and colleagues in the Journal of Pediatrics in 2011 (J Pediatr, Tandon et al.). Children in centers had the lowest daily total, 3.2 hours, against 5.5 hours for children in home-based care and 4.2 hours in Head Start (J Pediatr).

All of these figures come from observation or from program and parent reports in studies published between 2009 and 2021; none is a national count of screen use in U.S. centers.

What did studies find about video-based coaching for early childhood teachers?

In a 2008 trial with 113 teachers in a state-funded pre-k program, teachers who got online consultation and feedback on video of their own classroom interactions improved their observed interaction quality more than teachers who only had a website of video clips, according to Pianta and colleagues at the University of Virginia, who developed the MyTeachingPartner program (Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Pianta et al.). A later analysis by the same group of 393 pre-K teachers (41% in Head Start) and 1,570 students in 10 urban sites in 2008-2010 found that teachers who finished more coaching cycles improved their instruction more, which in turn predicted larger gains in children's early literacy and working memory (Child Development, Pianta et al.).

Video feedback has also been tested with home-based caregivers. In a Dutch randomized trial of the VIPP-CC program published in 2011, 48 caregivers were randomized; overall child care quality improved in the intervention group and not in the control group, but observed caregiver sensitivity did not change (Journal of Family Psychology, Groeneveld et al.).

Recorded video does not score a classroom the same way a live observer does. Across 59 preschool classrooms in five U.S. states, observed from May 2023 to August 2024, a second observer scored video of the same 101 observations (Child Development, Partika et al.). Video scores for Emotional Support on the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) were lower than live scores, an effect size of d = -0.30, and in higher-quality classrooms video scores were lower in every domain (Child Development). The authors say this matters for coaching and accountability systems that rely on video.

What does research say about cameras in child care classrooms?

Very little, and none of it counts U.S. centers. Searches of PubMed and ERIC on November 7, 2026 for webcams, live-stream cameras and classroom cameras in child care found no U.S. peer-reviewed count of centers with cameras parents can watch. One 2022 study of security cameras in Israeli child care centres rests on seven semi-structured interviews with teachers and caregivers (International Journal of Child Care and Education Policy, Meishar-Tal et al.). They described cameras as disruptive to routines and a source of mistrust and privacy worries between parents and staff, and also as a way of building mutual trust with parents (IJCCEP).

What does COPPA say about children's photos and video?

The federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA, 16 CFR part 312) covers children under 13 and counts a photograph, video, or audio file that contains a child's image or voice as personal information (eCFR, 16 CFR 312.2). The Rule applies to operators of websites and online services directed to children, or that know they are collecting personal information from a child. Whether it reaches a particular center's post depends on facts this page does not judge.

The FTC amended the Rule in a notice published April 22, 2025, the first changes since it was last amended in January 2013 (Federal Register). The amended Rule took effect June 23, 2025, and most businesses had until April 22, 2026 to comply (Federal Register, 90 FR 16918). Among the changes, the definition of personal information now also covers a biometric identifier such as a voiceprint, facial template or faceprint (eCFR). Operators must get separate verifiable parental consent before disclosing a child's information to third parties when that is not integral to the service (eCFR, 16 CFR 312.5), and must keep a written data retention policy instead of holding children's information indefinitely (eCFR, 16 CFR 312.10).

The ceiling on penalties has risen. FTC staff wrote in November 2019 that the Rule allowed civil penalties of up to $42,530 per violation (FTC). The amount for knowing rule violations under Section 5(m)(1)(A) of the FTC Act, as the eCFR displayed it in November 2026, is $53,088 per violation (eCFR, 16 CFR 1.98). That is a rise of 24.8% in nominal dollars, our calculation from the two FTC figures.

What did the FTC's 2019 YouTube settlement cost Google?

Google and YouTube agreed in September 2019 to pay a record $170 million to settle FTC and New York Attorney General charges that YouTube collected personal information from viewers of child-directed channels without parental consent (FTC). Of that, $136 million went to the FTC, by the FTC's account the largest amount it had obtained in a COPPA case since the law was passed in 1998, and $34 million went to New York (FTC). The Commission voted 3-2 to bring the case (FTC). The settlement required YouTube to build a system that permits channel owners to identify their child-directed content (FTC), which YouTube runs as its "made for kids" audience setting.

What does YouTube switch off on a video set as made for kids?

YouTube turns off a list of features on any video or live stream set as made for kids, including comments, autoplay on home, cards and end screens, and channel memberships (YouTube Help). The full list also includes live chat, the notification bell, personalized advertising, Miniplayer playback and saving to a playlist (YouTube Help). YouTube says that dropping personalized ads may cause a decrease in revenue for creators who mark content as made for kids (YouTube Help). The changes rolled out worldwide from January 6, 2020 (YouTube Official Blog).

The setting depends on who a video is aimed at. YouTube lists subject matter as one factor, with educational content for preschoolers as its example of made-for-kids content (YouTube Help). Its examples of general-audience videos include a family vlog telling other parents about an amusement park visit (YouTube Help).

A separate YouTube rule applies whenever children appear on screen. Under its child safety policy, content that breaks no rules but depicts children may lose features such as comments, live chat and live streaming (YouTube Help). Live streams showing minors under 16 who are not visibly accompanied by an adult may be removed or have live chat turned off (YouTube Help).

How does Florida define a child care facility and a family child care home?

Under Florida law, a child care facility is any center or arrangement that cares for more than five children unrelated to the operator for a payment, fee or grant, whether or not it runs for profit (Fla. Stat. 402.302). Public and nonpublic schools, summer camps and vacation Bible schools are left out. A family child care home is an occupied residence caring for children from at least two unrelated families. It may care for at most 10 children if no more than 5 are of preschool age and no more than 2 are infants (Fla. Stat. 402.302), or at most four infants under 12 months (Fla. Stat. 402.302). The operator's own children under 13 count toward the limit. A large family child care home may care for up to 12 children, no more than 4 of them under 24 months (Fla. Stat. 402.302), and must have at least two full-time child care staff on site, one of them the owner or occupant of the home (Fla. Stat. 402.302). The 2026 statutes call these homes "family child care homes"; older laws and many DCF pages still say "family day care homes".

What staff-to-child ratios does Florida require in child care centers?

Florida's statute sets the minimum staff-to-child ratios for licensed child care facilities by age, from one adult for every four infants to one for every 25 school-age children (Fla. Stat. 402.305(4)). For a mixed group of children 2 and older, the ratio follows the age group with the most children in it. The ratios are minimums set by the Legislature; providers may staff more richly.

What training and credentials do Florida child care staff and directors need?

Every child care staff member in a licensed Florida facility must take an approved 40-clock-hour introductory course and pass a competency exam within a year of starting it (Fla. Stat. 402.305). After that, staff complete 10 clock hours of in-service training every year (Fla. Stat. 402.305). For every 20 children in a facility open 8 or more hours a week, one staff member must hold a child development associate (CDA) credential or an equivalent (Fla. Stat. 402.305). Each facility also needs a director with an active Director Credential who is on site for most operating hours; DCF's Child Care Facility Handbook says the credential stays active for five years from the date it is issued (DCF Child Care Facility Handbook). Operators of family child care homes take a shorter 30-clock-hour introductory course, which they must pass before caring for children (Fla. Stat. 402.313).

How does Florida screen child care workers?

Florida screens child care staff to its level 2 standard: a fingerprint-based criminal history check, the sex offender registries and the child abuse registry of every state the worker lived in during the previous 5 years. If DCF cannot finish within 3 business days, the worker gets a 45-day provisional-hire status and must be directly supervised by screened, trained staff until the results arrive (Fla. Stat. 402.305).

Does Florida limit television, video or screen time in child care centers?

Yes. DCF's Child Care Facility Handbook, which rule 65C-22.001 adopts by reference, says a licensed facility's written activity plan may not include electronic media for children under two years of age (DCF Child Care Facility Handbook). For children 2 and older, electronic media may be used only for educational purposes or physical activity, and for no more than 1 to 2 hours per day (DCF Child Care Facility Handbook). The handbook cited here is dated December 2025; the version adopted in August 2026, effective September 1, 2026, keeps the same wording.

The handbook has no rule on classroom cameras, parent live streams or posting children's photos online. Its one recording provision points the other way: a facility may not stop the licensing inspector from copying records or photographing or recording a location or activity on the premises as evidence for an inspection (DCF Child Care Facility Handbook). Photo and video sharing through parent apps is left to each provider's own policy; the federal privacy rules are covered in the video and screens section.

Who licenses child care in Palm Beach, Broward and Martin counties?

Florida DCF inspects and licenses child care facilities and homes in 63 of the state's 67 counties (Florida DCF). Four counties run their own licensing agencies, which must meet or exceed the state standards: Broward, Palm Beach, Pinellas and Sarasota (Florida DCF). Martin County providers are licensed by DCF.

How many child care providers operate in Florida?

DCF's statewide provider list showed 11,920 operating child care providers on November 5, 2026: 9,677 child care facilities, 1,836 family child care homes and 407 large family child care homes (our calculation from the DCF provider file). Of the facilities, 6,526 held a state or county license and 3,068 were license-exempt programs, such as religious-exempt centers and school-age programs at schools; the rest were listed as "Substantial Compliance". The family child care homes split into 1,407 licensed homes and 429 registered homes; registration applies in counties that do not require a license. The licensed facilities listed a combined capacity of 752,430 children, about 115 per facility. Capacity is the licensed maximum, not enrollment.

Palm Beach, Broward and Martin counties together hold 13.5% of Florida's operating child care providers (our calculation from the DCF provider file). Broward lists only 4 license-exempt facilities, against 189 in Palm Beach and 40 in Martin, so exempt programs appear to be under-listed for Broward; compare counties on licensed providers rather than totals. Our county table, with counts, capacity and program flags but no provider names or addresses, is published as a CSV. Employer and business counts from the Census Bureau and BLS are in the industry section.

How many Florida child care providers hold Gold Seal Quality Care status?

Florida's Division of Early Learning counted 1,934 Gold Seal Quality Care designated child care providers in FY 2024-25, of which 1,589 were contracted for School Readiness and 1,648 for VPK (Florida Division of Early Learning). Gold Seal status requires accreditation from one of 17 approved associations and raises a provider's School Readiness payment rate; 49 providers lost it that year over licensing violations. DCF's provider file names an accrediting body in its Gold Seal column for 3,040 operating providers, 568 of them license-exempt (our calculation from the DCF provider file). That column appears to record accreditation that private schools also hold, so it overstates official Gold Seal designations.

Who can attend Florida's free VPK, and for how many hours?

Every Florida child who turns 4 on or before September 1 is eligible for the Voluntary Prekindergarten Education Program (VPK) that school year or the next, with no income test (Fla. Stat. 1002.53). A school-year program at a private provider, such as a licensed child care center or family child care home, must provide at least 540 instructional hours (Fla. Stat. 1002.55). A summer program must provide at least 300 hours and may not start before May 1 (Fla. Stat. 1002.61). A private provider's school-year VPK class may have no more than 20 children, with a second adult once a class reaches 12 (Fla. Stat. 1002.55). Payment follows attendance: at most 20 percent of what a provider is paid for a child may cover hours the child was absent (Fla. Stat. 1002.71).

How many Florida 4-year-olds attend VPK?

The Legislature's Early Learning Programs Estimating Conference counted 150,956 children in VPK in program year 2024-25, school year plus summer (Florida EDR). That was a participation rate of 66.46% of the state's estimated 4-year-olds (Florida EDR). Preliminary figures for 2025-26, adopted in August 2026, show 143,770 children (Florida EDR) and a participation rate of 63.11% (Florida EDR). Measured in full-time equivalents, enrollment fell 4.54% from FY 2024-25 to FY 2025-26 (Florida EDR). The conference's history file puts the rate at about two-thirds in each program year from 2021-22 through 2024-25, so 2025-26 is the lowest in that run.

The Division of Early Learning's own count for FY 2024-25 is 153,132 children with 6,292 VPK providers (Florida Division of Early Learning). It counts every child enrolled at any time in the fiscal year, so it runs above the conference's program-year figure. Licensed private child care centers made up 4,259 of those providers, 68% of the total (Florida Division of Early Learning); public schools were 22%.

County rates divide each county's published VPK enrollment by its estimated 4-year-old population on October 1, 2025. Children who live in one county and attend VPK in another can push a county's rate up or down.

How much does Florida spend per VPK child?

Florida's early learning coalitions spent $433,944,861 on VPK in FY 2024-25, by the Division of Early Learning's count (Florida Division of Early Learning). That is about $2,834 per enrolled child (our calculation from the Division of Early Learning report). The National Institute for Early Education Research, a Rutgers University research center that surveys state pre-K programs each year, put Florida's state spending per enrolled child at $2,946 in 2024-25 (NIEER State of Preschool 2025). The two differ because they use different spending totals and enrollment counts. Neither is the per-FTE base student allocation that the General Appropriations Act sets each year; we did not find the 2026-27 allocation in a readable official source.

How many children get Florida School Readiness child care assistance?

Florida's School Readiness program, the state's child care subsidy for low-income working families funded mainly by the federal CCDF block grant, enrolled 210,786 children with 6,919 providers in FY 2024-25 (Florida Division of Early Learning). Coalitions spent $1,209,707,346 on the program, counting the local cash match (Florida Division of Early Learning), or about $5,739 per enrolled child (our calculation from the Division of Early Learning report). Paid enrollments of children aged 0 to 4 equaled 33% of the children that age living below 150% of the federal poverty level (Florida Division of Early Learning). Coverage was higher in Palm Beach County, at 46% (Florida Division of Early Learning), and 37% in Broward County (Florida Division of Early Learning). Martin County shares a coalition with Indian River and Okeechobee counties and is not reported on its own.

How big are the largest U.S. child care center operators?

KinderCare ran 1,601 early childhood education centers on January 3, 2026, with room for 214,803 children in 40 states and the District of Columbia, its fiscal 2025 10-K says (KinderCare 10-K). A year earlier it had 1,574 centers and capacity for 210,135 children (KinderCare 10-K), so it added +1.7% more centers in the year while its average weekly full-time-equivalent enrollment fell 2.0% (our calculation from the two 10-Ks). KinderCare averaged 142,248 full-time-equivalent children a week in fiscal 2025, down from 145,149 (KinderCare 10-K). Its Champions before- and after-school program ran at 1,153 sites and brought in 8% of revenue (KinderCare 10-K). It employed about 43,700 people, about 35,700 of them full-time (KinderCare 10-K).

Bright Horizons operated 1,010 centers worldwide at the end of 2025, with capacity for about 115,000 children in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia and India (Bright Horizons 10-K). 597 of them were in the United States (Bright Horizons 10-K), against 599 a year earlier (Bright Horizons 10-K), a change of -0.3% (our calculation). Neither 10-K counts centers by state, so neither gives a Florida figure. Bright Horizons had about 32,200 employees worldwide, about 28,900 of them at its centers (Bright Horizons 10-K). It says it runs about six times as many employer-sponsored centers as its nearest competitor, by its own internal analysis (Bright Horizons 10-K).

Even the largest chains hold a small slice of the market. KinderCare estimates that the top five center-based providers, itself included, held about 6% of U.S. child care capacity on January 3, 2026 (KinderCare 10-K). Five franchisors on this page had 2,123 schools between them at the end of 2025, more than KinderCare's centers (our calculation from their Minnesota franchise disclosure documents).

How much do the big operators earn, and how much comes from subsidies?

KinderCare's total revenue was $2,733,323 thousand in fiscal 2025, a 53-week year; $2,517,842 thousand came from its centers (KinderCare 10-K). Families whose tuition was partly or fully paid by government agencies produced 37% of that revenue (KinderCare 10-K), about $1,011 million (our calculation). Its October 2024 IPO prospectus measured subsidies differently: about 39% of the children enrolled in its centers on June 29, 2024 received a subsidy (KinderCare prospectus). One figure is a share of revenue and the other a share of children, so they do not compare directly.

Bright Horizons' full service center-based child care segment had $2,081,119 thousand in 2025 revenue, 71% of its $2,933,607 thousand total across five countries (Bright Horizons 10-K). For a sample of about 350 U.S. centers, it puts average tuition at $2,765 a month for infants, $2,565 for toddlers and $2,175 for preschoolers (Bright Horizons 10-K). Many of its centers are employer-sponsored, and some employers subsidize that tuition.

What do the big operators' filings say about parent apps, photos and video?

KinderCare's fiscal 2024 10-K says more than 160,000 parents use its mobile app daily and open it three times a day on average; the app shares photos and video in real time and has over 50,000 App Store reviews (KinderCare 10-K). Its IPO prospectus put the same use at 3.5 opens a day (KinderCare prospectus). Its fiscal 2025 10-K no longer mentions the app. Bright Horizons' 2025 10-K names its parent mobile app as the channel for age-based developmental notifications to enrolled families (Bright Horizons 10-K). Neither company's latest 10-K mentions classroom cameras, live streams or virtual tours.

How do the big child care franchisors compare?

The table sets out what six child care franchisors disclosed in their latest franchise disclosure documents filed with the Minnesota Department of Commerce, including amendments filed through September 2026. Each franchisor sells franchises, and every figure is its own. Outlets are schools at year end; Florida counts franchised schools only.

Lowest initial investment is the cheapest cover-page scenario: a leased or landlord-built school where offered, Primrose's adaptive-reuse school and Creative World's single range. The median of those six low ends was $1,013,525 (our calculation). Creative World's 2024 Florida row prints zeros, which does not match the 24 franchised schools in its own outlet summary; we print the 2023 figure as published.

How fast are child care franchisors growing, and how many schools are in Florida?

The Learning Experience grew +37.2% from 339 schools at the start of 2023 to 465 at the end of 2025, Celebree +84.6% from 39 to 72, and Goddard +11.2% from 598 to 665 (our calculations from their franchise disclosure documents). Florida held 5.7% of the 2,065 franchised schools of Goddard, Primrose, The Learning Experience, Kiddie Academy and Celebree at the end of 2025 (our calculation). Primrose had the most there, at 35, up from 30 at the start of 2023.

What do child care franchisors report about school revenue?

Each franchisor measures Item 19 its own way, so the figures below are not ranked against each other. The 620 Goddard schools open more than 18 months reported average 2025 gross revenue of $2,507,631, median $2,329,913, from franchisee operating reports (Goddard FDD). The 266 franchised Learning Experience centers open more than 48 months averaged $2,186,393 in 2025 gross sales (TLE FDD). The 293 Kiddie Academies open 24 months or more that reported results averaged $2,193,815 in 2025 gross revenue (Kiddie Academy FDD).

Primrose sorts its 520 schools active all of 2025 into quartiles of 130 by occupancy. The top quartile averaged 94% occupancy and $3,586,393 in gross revenue; the bottom quartile averaged 52% and $1,909,787 (Primrose FDD). That is 1.88 times the revenue (our calculation). Primrose also reports how often schools answer negative online reviews: 74.7% of the time in the top quartile and 63.7% in the bottom (Primrose FDD). The FDD does not claim the replies cause the revenue gap.

Where does franchise marketing money go, and do the documents mention video?

In 2025 about 75% of Goddard's marketing fees went to media placement and promotional items, and about 25% to its affiliates' production and overhead costs (Goddard FDD). Primrose's brand fund spent about 44.0% on paid media, public relations and website development in fiscal 2025, and 28.7% on administration (Primrose FDD). Kiddie Academy's Brand Building Fund, paid at 2% of gross revenues, spent 12.27% on producing advertising and 82.53% on media placement in fiscal 2025 (Kiddie Academy FDD). None of these spending lines names video.

Video shows up as a permitted use and as a training tool. Celebree's brand fund may pay for producing video among other advertising materials (Celebree FDD), and Creative World's marketing fund may pay for producing video once it starts charging, at up to 1% of weekly gross revenues after 50 schools are open. The Learning Experience trains franchisees with videos recorded in its in-house production studio (TLE FDD).

Cameras appear in one document. Goddard's franchise agreement bars franchisees from giving internet access to any surveillance cameras without the franchisor's written approval (Goddard FDD). We found no 'virtual tour' or 'live stream' text in any of the six FDDs. Kiddie Academy requires franchisees to buy Procare software for attendance and tuition and reserves the right to require an app for communicating with families (Kiddie Academy FDD).

How often do 10-K filings mention child care centers together with video, cameras or apps?

From 2001 to 2025, 216 Form 10-K filings contained the phrase "child care center" or "child care centers": 20 in 2004 and 7 in 2025 (our count from EDGAR full-text search). 55 of them also contained "video", and 20 contained "camera" or "cameras"; 3 contained a live-stream term, all filed by Fox Corp. 0 contained "virtual tour" or "virtual tours". Only 6 contained "mobile app", all filed in 2022-2025, and 5 of those were Bright Horizons or KinderCare 10-Ks. Most hits come from landlords, lenders, employers and media companies, not child care operators. The yearly counts are in our EDGAR count file.

What do the popular child care numbers really say?

Most of them started as a narrower measurement: brain weight, one state comparison, one vendor’s client test, one small preschool study. On November 7, 2026 we traced four figures that child care centers, advocates, state agencies and marketers repeat, back through archived agency pages and annual reports, ERIC records, the reports’ own earlier editions, peer-reviewed papers and the repeaters themselves.

“90% of a child’s brain develops by age 5”

The claim as repeated: First Things First, Arizona’s early childhood agency, headed its brain development page “90% of a Child’s Brain Develops By Age 5” (archived May 2018) (First Things First, archived). Michigan’s state MiKids Matter site copies the heading and text word for word, down to growth to 90% of adult size, “nearly full grown”, by age 5 (State of Michigan). Illinois wrote it into law: the findings of its 2024 Department of Early Childhood Act say that by age 5, 90% of brain development is complete (Illinois General Assembly). A May 2021 Bipartisan Policy Center explainer says 90% of the brain develops before age 5 (Bipartisan Policy Center), and Collaborative for Children, a Houston nonprofit that runs child care centers, asked parents in September 2025 whether they knew that 90% of a child’s brain is developed by age five (Collaborative for Children). None of them names a study. We found no Heckman Equation or Rauner Family Foundation page that prints an 85% or 90% figure, and the Rauner site did not answer.

Where it came from: the oldest First Things First form we found is in its 2011 annual report, which said “Eighty to 90 percent of brain development occurs in the first five years of life” and cited From Neurons to Neighborhoods, the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine’s 2000 book (First Things First, archived). We could not open that book: the National Academies Press closes its site to AI agents, and the NCBI Bookshelf copy returned a captcha, so we cannot say whether it prints the figure. The agency’s earlier pages did not use it. Its Brain Science page, archived from 2008 to 2013, said only that at birth the brain is about one-quarter of full adult size and that size is only a small part of the story (First Things First, archived). By the 2012 annual report the range had become a single number: “90% of a child’s critical brain development happens by age 5” (First Things First, archived).

What it measured: size, not development. First Things First’s own page explains the figure as growth to about 80% of adult size by age 3 and 90% by age 5 (First Things First, archived). The size numbers trace to brain weights at autopsy. Dekaban’s 1978 study selected 2,773 male brains and a smaller female sample, weighed fresh and free of lesions, from hospital autopsy reports (Annals of Neurology); brain weight quadruples over birth weight in the first 3 years of life (Annals of Neurology). Citing that study, UC Davis psychologist Ross Thompson wrote in 2024 that by age five the brain has reached 88% of its adult weight (Delaware Journal of Public Health), which helps explain the claim that the brain is 90% developed by five, a claim he calls mistaken because weight says little about maturation (Delaware Journal of Public Health). MRI shows the same split. A 1996 MRI study of children aged 5 to 17 found little change in total cerebral volume after the age of 5 years, while grey matter, white matter and fluid volumes kept changing (Brain). The 2022 Brain Charts study, which pooled MRI scans from birth to old age, found grey matter volume peaks at 5.9 years (Nature) and white matter volume at 28.7 years (Nature).

Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child, which repeaters often credit, does not print the 90%. Its brain architecture page says more than 1 million new neural connections form every second in the first few years of life (Harvard Center on the Developing Child), and that the brain’s basic architecture is built in a process that begins before birth and continues into adulthood (Harvard Center on the Developing Child).

Use instead: say the brain reaches about 88% of its adult weight by age five, that the first years are the fastest period for new connections, and that development continues long after: white matter keeps growing until about 28.7 years. Do not say 90% of the brain is “developed” or “complete” by five.

“Child care costs more than college tuition”

The claim as repeated: in February 2022 the Pennsylvania Office of Rural Health wrote that infant care costs more than in-state tuition at a public four-year university in 34 states, crediting the Economic Policy Institute (Pennsylvania Office of Rural Health). Repeaters mix that count with Child Care Aware of America’s and drop what was compared.

Where it came from: the oldest dated form we found is a 1998 Children’s Defense Fund issue brief built on a survey of local child care resource and referral agencies run with NACCRRA, the association that later became Child Care Aware of America. It found the average annual cost of care for a 4-year-old in an urban center was more than average public college tuition in almost every state (Children’s Defense Fund via ERIC). The 2000 update said all but one state (Children’s Defense Fund via ERIC). Child Care Aware of America’s “Parents and the High Cost of Child Care” reports then made the comparison yearly with infant care: center-based infant care cost more than a year’s in-state tuition and fees at a four-year public college in 35 states and the District of Columbia in 2011 (Child Care Aware of America via ERIC), 31 states and D.C. in 2012 (Child Care Aware of America via ERIC), 30 states and D.C. in 2015 (Child Care Aware of America) and 28 states and D.C. in 2016 (Child Care Aware of America). For a 4-year-old in a center the 2015 count was 19 states and D.C. (Child Care Aware of America).

What it measured: a state’s average price for one year of full-time center care, set against one year of in-state tuition and fees at a four-year public college (the 2016 report took tuition from the College Board). It is a list price comparison, not what families pay after subsidies, and the count of states moves with tuition as well as with child care prices.

Use instead: Child Care Aware of America’s newest state count, with the year, the age group and “center-based” stated: in 2024, the average price of infant care in a center exceeded in-state public university tuition in 41 states plus DC; its 2025 edition says only “the majority of states”. In Florida, 2024 center infant care cost 104.50% more than in-state public tuition and fees. Name the number of states, the year and the kind of care, not “child care costs more than college”.

“Video on a landing page lifts conversions 80%”

The 80% is a best case from one video vendor, EyeView, in 2009-2010, about a trading platform and a tutoring site, not child care. EyeView’s blog first reported that eToro visitors who watched its video were 20% more likely to download the product (December 2008) (EyeView, archived). In February 2009 it said UMOO viewers were 80% more likely to become depositing users, comparing viewers with non-viewers for one client (EyeView, archived), and in November 2009 it quoted a TutorVista manager on a first test that lifted conversion by over 80 percent (EyeView, archived). Its 2010 white paper said only that “in some cases” the boost was over 80% (EyeView white paper, archived), and the one test it described, the eToro split test, was now almost 32 percent (EyeView white paper, archived).

The scope fell away in repeats. By August 2010 Unbounce, a landing-page software seller, wrote that video on landing pages can increase conversion by 80% (Unbounce, archived), and WordStream, a pay-per-click software seller, repeated 80% in March 2016, crediting “EyeWideDigital” (WordStream). In the child care trade, Care for Kids, an Australian child care listing site that sells video production to centres, tells centres that video can boost conversion rates by an astounding 80% (Care for Kids). Beverly Boy Productions, a U.S. video production company selling to day care centers, turns it into “audience engagement by up to 80%” (Beverly Boy Productions). We found no child care center or preschool test behind the figure.

The larger later evidence points the other way. Unbounce’s own 2021 analysis of about 35,000 customer landing pages in each of three periods (Unbounce) concluded that video appears to have a minimal or negative impact on landing-page performance regardless of the conversion goal (Unbounce). Use instead: do not cite a conversion lift for child care video; say Unbounce’s 2021 study of 35,000 pages found video had a minimal or negative effect, and judge a center’s tour video by its own tour bookings and enrollments.

“Every $1 invested in early education returns $7 (or 13%)”

The claim as repeated: Illinois’ 2024 Department of Early Childhood Act finds that for every dollar invested in high-quality early childhood education and care, society gains over $7 in economic returns in the long term, naming no study (Illinois General Assembly).

Where it came from: the High/Scope Perry Preschool study, which followed low-income African American children from Ypsilanti, Michigan, randomly assigned to preschool or none in the 1960s. Its age-27 report (1993) estimated the program returned to the public $7.16 for every dollar spent (High/Scope via ERIC). The age-40 follow-up put the general public’s return at $12.90 per dollar in a 2006 paper (Journal of Human Resources via ERIC), or $5.67 with a steeper discount rate on future benefits in a 2005 paper by the same team (Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis via ERIC). The “13%” is a different measure from a different program. The Heckman Equation’s FAQ says the 13% for North Carolina’s ABC/CARE birth-to-five programs is an annual rate of return, and the figure printed beside it is the benefit-cost ratio (The Heckman Equation); Heckman’s earlier 7-10% annual return was for Perry, which served three- and four-year-olds (The Heckman Equation).

What it measured: two small, intensive programs for disadvantaged children, decades ago, valued mostly through later earnings and less crime. Neither is an estimate for child care in general.

Use instead: name the study and the measure: Perry Preschool returned an estimated $7.16 to the public per dollar by age 27; ABC/CARE earned a 13% annual return. Do not attach either figure to “every dollar” spent on child care.

Every popular claim our research pages trace, 805 in all, is on one page: popular video statistics, fact-checked.

How we built this page

We started from the questions people search for about child care video statistics and looked for the organization that actually produced each answer. Every figure on this page sits in an evidence ledger with its source, the exact table or paragraph it came from, the measurement period, the population measured, and the date we checked it. This edition holds 637 figures from 68 publishers.

On November 7, 2026, each sourced figure on this page was re-fetched with the fetch cache cleared and matched against the recorded wording: BLS occupation wage estimates, the Consumer Price Index and the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (through the BLS data API and data pages) and Employment Projections and Current Population Survey tables (through Internet Archive copies, because bls.gov refuses automated requests); Census County Business Patterns, Nonemployer Statistics, the 2017 and 2022 Economic Census and the Annual Integrated Economic Survey (through the Census data API) and its 2011 child care report; NCES Early Childhood Program Participation reports; HHS reports from the National Survey of Early Care and Education, CCDF data tables, Head Start program facts and the Federal Register; Department of Labor, Treasury and IRS pages; Child Care Aware of America’s price reports; NAEYC, CSCCE, the Center for American Progress, the Bipartisan Policy Center, First Five Years Fund, ReadyNation and the U.S. Chamber Foundation; software sellers’ own reports; Caring for Our Children, AAP statements, eCFR, FTC releases and YouTube’s help pages; journal abstracts through NCBI’s E-utilities, because PubMed refuses scripts; the 2026 Florida Statutes, Florida DCF’s Child Care Facility Handbook and provider list, Florida EDR’s early learning estimating conference and the Division of Early Learning’s annual report; the 10-Ks of Bright Horizons and KinderCare and the franchise disclosure documents of Goddard, Primrose, The Learning Experience, Kiddie Academy, Celebree and Creative World Schools filed in Minnesota; and the pages behind each popular claim. Our YouTube figures come from the YouTube Data API, our filing counts from EDGAR full-text search and our Florida provider counts from DCF’s own list. We left out the Department of Labor’s county child care prices (published only as spreadsheets and dashboards our checker cannot read), Child Care Aware’s 2025 state tables (hosted on a site whose robots rules bar AI agents), brightwheel’s marketing percentages (no sample or dates) and a LineLeader report whose host bars all crawlers.

We only cite the producer: government agencies, regulators, company filings and official posts, and the survey owner's own report. We do not cite statistics roundups, Statista-style aggregators, or salary sites without a public method. We did not bypass paywalls or sign-up forms; where a full report was gated, we used only the figures its publisher states publicly.

Figures marked "our calculation" are arithmetic on the cited numbers, and anyone can reproduce them:

This edition contains no Mark Studios customer data.

Limitations

• Counts of “centers” depend on who counts. BLS and Census count employer establishments in NAICS 624410, which also holds before- and after-school programs and leaves out school-district pre-K; HHS’s National Survey of Early Care and Education counts centers serving children 5 and under; Census nonemployer counts include one-person family child care homes and self-employed babysitters. We print each with its definition.
• Occupation codes mix settings. BLS’s childcare worker code (39-9011) includes nannies and babysitters, its wage survey leaves out the self-employed and workers hired directly by households, and its preschool teacher code (25-2011) includes public school pre-K teachers. CSCCE’s early educator wages come from the American Community Survey and do not match BLS’s.
• Prices differ by source. The Department of Labor’s figures are 2022 medians, Child Care Aware of America averages state market-rate surveys, and Care.com, which sells to families and caregivers, reports its own unweighted survey and posted rates. We could not print county prices for Palm Beach, Broward or Martin.
• Many surveys are advocates’ or sellers’. NAEYC’s workforce surveys are open to anyone who answers; the parent polls were run for advocacy groups; Procare, Lillio and LineLeader sell software to centers. Each is labelled with its sample and dates.
• Our YouTube read follows YouTube’s ranking. The 562 videos are what YouTube’s search returned for ‘daycare’, ‘preschool tour’ and ‘daycare teacher’ (the top 200 results of each, sorted by views, with no country filter) on November 7, 2026. Most were games and children’s shows, which we set aside; view counts are lifetime snapshots, and we sorted 402 channels by hand from their public text without checking any licence. We do not name private families or home providers.
• Florida’s provider list is a live file. Our counts are from the list Florida DCF dated November 5, 2026. Broward and Palm Beach counties license child care themselves, and the list’s Gold Seal column does not match the Division of Early Learning’s official count, so we print both.
• Franchise figures are what each franchisor chose to disclose. Item 19 figures cover the schools and periods each franchisor picked.

How to cite this page

For a single figure, cite the original publisher named next to it, and link here if the verification trail is useful to your readers. Each figure has its own anchor, so you can link straight to it, for example https://www.markstudios.com/research/child-care-center-video-statistics#DRV-213. To cite the page as a whole:

Mark Studios. "Child Care Video Statistics." Last verified Nov 7, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/child-care-center-video-statistics

@misc{markstudios_child_care_center_video_statistics_2026,
  author = {{Mark Studios}},
  title = {{Child Care Video Statistics}},
  year = {2026},
  month = nov,
  url = {https://www.markstudios.com/research/child-care-center-video-statistics},
  note = {Last verified 2026-11-07}
}

Our calculations and the evidence table are free to reuse with attribution and a link to this page. Each underlying figure remains the claim of its original publisher, and some publishers ask for a link when their figures are reused.

Sources

Download the evidence table (CSV)

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37. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025, BLS Public Data API v2 (2026). Accessed 2026-11-07.
38. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), series CUUR0000SEEB03 (2026-10). Accessed 2026-11-07.
39. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), series CUUR0000SA0 (2026-10). Accessed 2026-11-07.
40. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), series CUUR0000SEEB03 (12-month percent change) (2026-10). Accessed 2026-11-07.
41. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, 2025 annual averages, industry data file (QCEW Open Data) (2026). Accessed 2026-11-07.
42. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, 2019 annual averages, industry data file (QCEW Open Data) (2020). Accessed 2026-11-07.
43. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns: 2023 (Census Data API, dataset 2023/cbp) (2025-06-26). Accessed 2026-11-07.
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48. U.S. Census Bureau, Economic Census: Summary Statistics for the U.S., States, and Selected Geographies: 2017 (Census Data API, dataset 2017/ecnbasic) (2020). Accessed 2026-11-07.
49. U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Integrated Economic Survey: All Sectors: Summary Statistics for Employer Firms in the U.S.: 2024 (Census Data API, dataset 2024/aiesbasic) (2026). Accessed 2026-11-07.
50. U.S. Census Bureau, Economic Census: Industry by Products Statistics for the U.S.: 2022 (Census Data API, dataset 2022/ecnnapcsind) (2025). Accessed 2026-11-07.
51. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns: 2023 (Census Data API, dataset 2023/cbp) (2025-06-26). Accessed 2026-11-07.
52. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Early Childhood Program Participation: 2023 (NCES 2024-112), First Look (2024-10). Accessed 2026-11-07.
53. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Early Childhood Program Participation: 2019 (NCES 2020-075REV), First Look (2021). Accessed 2026-11-07.
54. U.S. Census Bureau, Who's Minding the Kids? Child Care Arrangements: Spring 2011 (P70-135) (2013-04). Accessed 2026-11-07.
55. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE), NSECE Book of Tables: Center-based Child Care and Early Education Providers: Counts and Characteristics (OPRE Report No. 2026-019) (2026). Accessed 2026-11-07.
56. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE), Center-based Early Care and Education Providers in 2012 and 2019: Counts and Characteristics (OPRE Report No. 2021-222) (2021-09). Accessed 2026-11-07.
57. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE), NSECE Home-based Child Care and Early Education Providers: Counts and Characteristics (OPRE Report No. 2026-010) (2026). Accessed 2026-11-07.
58. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE), Home-based Early Care and Education Providers in 2012 and 2019: Counts and Characteristics (OPRE chartbook) (2021-06-09). Accessed 2026-11-07.
59. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE), Child Care and Early Education Center-based Workforce: Counts and Characteristics (OPRE Report No. 2026-007) (2026). Accessed 2026-11-07.
60. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Child Care, FY 2023 Preliminary Data Table 1 - Average Monthly Adjusted Number of Families and Children Served (2026-01-21). Accessed 2026-11-07.
61. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Child Care, FY 2022 Final Data Table 1 - Average Monthly Adjusted Number of Families and Children Served (2024-11-23). Accessed 2026-11-07.
62. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Child Care, FY 2023 Preliminary Data Table 3 - Average Monthly Percentages of Children Served by Types of Care (2026-01-21). Accessed 2026-11-07.
63. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Child Care, FY 2023 Preliminary Data Table 4 - Average Monthly Percentages of Children Served in Regulated Settings vs. Settings Legally Operating Without Regulation (2026-01-21). Accessed 2026-11-07.
64. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Child Care, FY 2023 Preliminary Data Table 15 - Average Monthly Subsidy Paid to Provider by Age Group and Care Type (2026-01-21). Accessed 2026-11-07.
65. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Child Care, FY 2023 Preliminary Data Table 17 - Average Monthly Mean Family Co-payment as a Percent of Family Income (2026-01-21). Accessed 2026-11-07.
66. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Child Care, FY 2023 Preliminary Data Table 8 - Consumer Education Strategies Summary (2026-01-21). Accessed 2026-11-07.
67. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (Federal Register), Improving Child Care Access, Affordability, and Stability in the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), final rule, 89 FR 15366 (2024-03-01). Accessed 2026-11-07.
68. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (Federal Register), Restoring Flexibility in the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), final rule, 91 FR 25796 (2026-05-12). Accessed 2026-11-07.
69. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Head Start, Head Start Program Facts: Fiscal Year 2025 (2026-11-05). Accessed 2026-11-07.
70. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Head Start, Head Start Program Facts: Fiscal Year 2024 (2025-08-14). Accessed 2026-11-07.
71. Child Care Aware of America, Child Care in America: 2025 Price & Supply (2026-05). Accessed 2026-11-07.
72. Child Care Aware of America, Methods: Child Care Aware of America's Price and Supply Report (2026-05). Accessed 2026-11-07.
73. Child Care Aware of America, Child Care in America: 2024 Price & Supply (2025-05). Accessed 2026-11-07.
74. Child Care Aware of America, Child Care at a Standstill: Price and Landscape Analysis (2024). Accessed 2026-11-07.
75. U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bureau, Updated database shows families spend significant portion of income on childcare costs (news release, November 19, 2024) (2024-11-19). Accessed 2026-11-07.
76. Care.com (seller), How Much Does Child Care Cost? 2026 Cost of Care Report (2026-02-03). Accessed 2026-11-07.
77. Child Care Aware of America, Limited Supply, High Prices: Gaps Still Remain in Meeting Families' Child Care Needs (blog) (2026-05-13). Accessed 2026-11-07.
78. U.S. Department of the Treasury, The Economics of Child Care Supply in the United States (September 2021) (2021-09-14). Accessed 2026-11-07.
79. U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bureau, Childcare Prices in Local Areas: Initial Findings from the National Database of Childcare Prices (Issue brief, January 2023) (2023-01). Accessed 2026-11-07.
80. Child Care Aware of America, Child Care in America: 2024 Affordability Analysis (2025-05). Accessed 2026-11-07.
81. Child Care Aware of America, Child Care Prices Rival Major Household Expenses; Supply Fails to Keep Pace with Demand (press release, May 13, 2026) (2026-05-13). Accessed 2026-11-07.
82. U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bureau, November update: New childcare price data, research on paid leave, National Apprenticeship Week and more (Women's Bureau bulletin, December 2, 2024) (2024-12-02). Accessed 2026-11-07.
83. Internal Revenue Service, Publication 503 (2025), Child and Dependent Care Expenses (2026-04-30). Accessed 2026-11-07.
84. Internal Revenue Service, One, Big, Beautiful Bill provisions (Working Families Tax Cuts) (2026-10-22). Accessed 2026-11-07.
85. Internal Revenue Service, Publication 15-B (2026), Employer's Tax Guide to Fringe Benefits (2026-04-30). Accessed 2026-11-07.
86. NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children), An Unsustainable Status Quo: We All Bear the Burdens of an Underfunded System (2025-02-21). Accessed 2026-11-07.
87. Procare Solutions (child care software seller), Procare Solutions Releases 2026 Child Care Business Trends Report (2026-03-04). Accessed 2026-11-07.
88. NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children), A Year of Tough Choices: The Child Care Affordability Crisis is Destabilizing Educators and Families (National Workforce Survey Data Brief) (2026-02-20). Accessed 2026-11-07.
89. NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children), An Unsustainable Status Quo: Florida (state survey brief) (2025-03-03). Accessed 2026-11-07.
90. UC Berkeley Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE), Florida – Early Childhood Workforce Index 2024 (state profile) (2024-11). Accessed 2026-11-07.
91. UC Berkeley Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE), Early Educator Pay & Economic Insecurity Across the States (Early Childhood Workforce Index 2024) (2024-11). Accessed 2026-11-07.
92. Center for American Progress, Executive Summary: America's Licensed Child Care Deserts (2026-04-29). Accessed 2026-11-07.
93. Center for American Progress, Licensed child care access by state (Table 1, America's Licensed Child Care Deserts), Datawrapper dataset (2026-04-29). Accessed 2026-11-07.
94. Center for American Progress, America's Child Care Deserts in 2018 (2018-12-06). Accessed 2026-11-07.
95. Bipartisan Policy Center (survey by Cygnal), Survey of Registered Voters Who Are Parents with Children Under the Age of 5 (toplines) (2025-10). Accessed 2026-11-07.
96. Bipartisan Policy Center (poll by Morning Consult), Nationwide Child Care Poll: Child Care Costs Impact Families' Employment, Savings, and Future Planning (2019-11-06). Accessed 2026-11-07.
97. First Five Years Fund (poll by Impact Research), New National Child Care Poll (July 2026) (2026-07-27). Accessed 2026-11-07.
98. NAEYC and MomsRising (poll by Lake Research Partners and Bellwether Research), Parents and Early Childhood Educators See Each Other as Partners (2025-07-14). Accessed 2026-11-07.
99. ReadyNation (Council for a Strong America), $122 Billion: The Growing, Annual Cost of the Infant-Toddler Child Care Crisis (2023-02-02). Accessed 2026-11-07.
100. U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation with the Florida Chamber Foundation, Untapped Potential in Florida (2023-08-24). Accessed 2026-11-07.
101. U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, New Research Shows States Lose Billions in Annual Economic Opportunity Due to Childcare Gaps (2021-11-30). Accessed 2026-11-07.
102. Procare Solutions (child care software seller), Procare Child Care Mobile App Reaches 10 Million Downloads (2025-08-26). Accessed 2026-11-07.
103. Lillio, formerly HiMama (child care software seller), Building the Future of Early Childhood Education: 2024 Industry Snapshot Report (highlights page) (2024). Accessed 2026-11-07.
104. LineLeader by ChildcareCRM (enrollment software seller), 3 Best Practices for Childcare Center Success | Use Nurture Emails (2021-12-06). Accessed 2026-11-07.
105. National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care and Early Education (Caring for Our Children; AAP, APHA and NRC), Caring for Our Children (CFOC), Standard 2.2.0.3: Screen Time/Digital Media Use (2017-10-12). Accessed 2026-11-07.
106. American Academy of Pediatrics, Media and Young Minds (AAP Council on Communications and Media policy statement, Pediatrics 138(5):e20162591) (2016-11). Accessed 2026-11-07.
107. American Academy of Pediatrics, Digital Ecosystems, Children, and Adolescents (AAP policy statement, Pediatrics 157(2):e2025075320) (2026-01-20). Accessed 2026-11-07.
108. Pediatrics (Christakis and Garrison), Preschool-aged children's television viewing in child care settings (2009-11-23). Accessed 2026-11-07.
109. The Journal of Pediatrics (Tandon et al.), Preschoolers' total daily screen time at home and by type of child care (2010-10-27). Accessed 2026-11-07.
110. BMC Pediatrics (Vanderloo), Screen-viewing among preschoolers in childcare: a systematic review (2014-08-16). Accessed 2026-11-07.
111. Journal of Physical Activity and Health (Erinosho et al.), Impact of Policies on Physical Activity and Screen Time Practices in 50 Child-Care Centers in North Carolina (2015-03-31). Accessed 2026-11-07.
112. Health Promotion Practice (Chang-Martinez et al.), State-Mandated Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Screen Time Policies in Child Care Centers (2017-09-11). Accessed 2026-11-07.
113. Childhood Obesity (Gans et al.), Physical Activity and Screen Time Practices of Family Child Care Providers: Do They Meet Best Practice Guidelines? (2021-12-01). Accessed 2026-11-07.
114. Early Childhood Research Quarterly (Pianta et al.), Effects of Web-Mediated Professional Development Resources on Teacher-Child Interactions in Pre-Kindergarten Classrooms (2008). Accessed 2026-11-07.
115. Child Development (Pianta, Lipscomb and Ruzek), Coaching Teachers to Improve Students' School Readiness Skills: Indirect Effects of Teacher-Student Interaction (2021-06-15). Accessed 2026-11-07.
116. Journal of Family Psychology (Groeneveld et al.), Enhancing home-based child care quality through video-feedback intervention: a randomized controlled trial (2011-02). Accessed 2026-11-07.
117. Child Development (Partika et al.), Comparing live and video observations in preschool classrooms: Evidence from within-observation CLASS scores (2026-10-27). Accessed 2026-11-07.
118. International Journal of Child Care and Education Policy (Meishar-Tal et al.), Implications of CCTV Cameras on Child-Care Centres' Routines, Peer Relationships, and Parent-Teacher Relationships: Child Care Educators' Opinions (2022). Accessed 2026-11-07.
119. Federal Trade Commission (Code of Federal Regulations, eCFR), 16 CFR Part 312, Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA Rule) (2025-04-22). Accessed 2026-11-07.
120. Federal Trade Commission (Federal Register), Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (final rule amendments, 90 FR 16918, FR Doc. 2025-05904) (2025-04-22). Accessed 2026-11-07.
121. Federal Trade Commission, YouTube channel owners: Is your content directed to children? (FTC Business Blog) (2019-11-22). Accessed 2026-11-07.
122. Federal Trade Commission (Code of Federal Regulations, eCFR), 16 CFR 1.98, Adjustment of civil monetary penalty amounts (2026-11-07). Accessed 2026-11-07.
123. Federal Trade Commission, Google and YouTube Will Pay Record $170 Million for Alleged Violations of Children's Privacy Law (2019-09-04). Accessed 2026-11-07.
124. YouTube (Google LLC), Upcoming changes to kids content on YouTube.com (YouTube Help) (undated). Accessed 2026-11-07.
125. YouTube (Google LLC), Better protecting kids' privacy on YouTube (YouTube Official Blog) (2020-01-06). Accessed 2026-11-07.
126. YouTube (Google LLC), Determining if your content is made for kids (YouTube Help) (undated). Accessed 2026-11-07.
127. YouTube (Google LLC), Child safety policy (YouTube Help) (undated). Accessed 2026-11-07.
128. Florida Legislature (Fla. Stat. s. 402.302, via The Florida Senate), Section 402.302 - 2026 Florida Statutes (Definitions) (2026). Accessed 2026-11-07.
129. Florida Legislature (Fla. Stat. s. 402.305, via The Florida Senate), Section 402.305 - 2026 Florida Statutes (Licensing standards; child care facilities) (2026). Accessed 2026-11-07.
130. Florida Department of Children and Families, Child Care Facility Handbook (December 2025), incorporated by reference in rule 65C-22.001, F.A.C. (2025-12). Accessed 2026-11-07.
131. Florida Legislature (Fla. Stat. s. 402.313, via The Florida Senate), Section 402.313 - 2026 Florida Statutes (Family child care homes) (2026). Accessed 2026-11-07.
132. Florida Department of Children and Families, About Child Care Licensure | Florida DCF (n.d. (read 2026-11-07)). Accessed 2026-11-07.
133. Florida Department of Education, Division of Early Learning, Division of Early Learning Annual Report 2024-2025 (2026-01). Accessed 2026-11-07.
134. Florida Legislature (Fla. Stat. s. 1002.53, via The Florida Senate), Section 1002.53 - 2026 Florida Statutes (Voluntary Prekindergarten Education Program; eligibility and enrollment) (2026). Accessed 2026-11-07.
135. Florida Legislature (Fla. Stat. s. 1002.55, via The Florida Senate), Section 1002.55 - 2026 Florida Statutes (School-year prekindergarten program delivered by private prekindergarten providers) (2026). Accessed 2026-11-07.
136. Florida Legislature (Fla. Stat. s. 1002.61, via The Florida Senate), Section 1002.61 - 2026 Florida Statutes (Summer prekindergarten program delivered by public schools and private prekindergarten providers) (2026). Accessed 2026-11-07.
137. Florida Legislature (Fla. Stat. s. 1002.71, via The Florida Senate), Section 1002.71 - 2026 Florida Statutes (Funding; financial and attendance reporting) (2026). Accessed 2026-11-07.
138. Florida Legislature, Office of Economic and Demographic Research (Early Learning Programs Estimating Conference), Voluntary Prekindergarten Education Program: History (Early Learning Programs Estimating Conference, August 6, 2026) (2026-08-06). Accessed 2026-11-07.
139. Florida Legislature, Office of Economic and Demographic Research (Early Learning Programs Estimating Conference), Voluntary Prekindergarten Education Program: Conference Package (Early Learning Programs Estimating Conference, August 6, 2026) (2026-08-06). Accessed 2026-11-07.
140. Florida Legislature, Office of Economic and Demographic Research (Early Learning Programs Estimating Conference), Voluntary Prekindergarten Education Program: Executive Summary (Early Learning Programs Estimating Conference, August 6, 2026) (2026-08-06). Accessed 2026-11-07.
141. National Institute for Early Education Research (Rutgers University), The State of Preschool 2025: State Preschool Yearbook, Florida profile (2026-04). Accessed 2026-11-07.
142. KinderCare Learning Companies, Inc. (SEC Form 10-K), KinderCare Learning Companies, Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 3, 2026 (2026-03-13). Accessed 2026-11-07.
143. KinderCare Learning Companies, Inc. (SEC Form 10-K), KinderCare Learning Companies, Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 28, 2024 (2025-03-21). Accessed 2026-11-07.
144. Bright Horizons Family Solutions Inc. (SEC Form 10-K), Bright Horizons Family Solutions Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025 (2026-02-26). Accessed 2026-11-07.
145. Bright Horizons Family Solutions Inc. (SEC Form 10-K), Bright Horizons Family Solutions Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024 (2025-02-27). Accessed 2026-11-07.
146. KinderCare Learning Companies, Inc. (SEC Form 424B4 prospectus), KinderCare Learning Companies, Inc. Prospectus (Form 424B4), initial public offering (2024-10-09). Accessed 2026-11-07.
147. Goddard Franchisor LLC (The Goddard School; franchise disclosure document filed with the Minnesota Department of Commerce), Goddard Franchisor LLC (The Goddard School) Franchise Disclosure Document, Clean FDD 2026, Minnesota CARDS file 10545 (document 36432-202604-09) (2026-04-30). Accessed 2026-11-07.
148. Primrose School Franchising SPE, LLC (Primrose Schools; franchise disclosure document filed with the Minnesota Department of Commerce), Primrose School Franchising SPE, LLC Franchise Disclosure Document, Clean FDD 2026, Minnesota CARDS file 9092 (2026-04-27). Accessed 2026-11-07.
149. Primrose School Franchising SPE, LLC (Primrose Schools; franchise disclosure document filed with the Minnesota Department of Commerce), Primrose School Franchising SPE, LLC Franchise Disclosure Document issued April 24, 2026, as amended August 3, 2026: Marked FDD (redline pages only), Minnesota CARDS file 9092 (document 37096-202608-02) (2026-08-03). Accessed 2026-11-07.
150. The Learning Experience Systems LLC (franchise disclosure document filed with the Minnesota Department of Commerce), The Learning Experience Systems LLC Franchise Disclosure Document, Clean FDD 2026, Minnesota CARDS file 5877 (2026-04-24). Accessed 2026-11-07.
151. Kiddie Academy Domestic Franchising, LLC (franchise disclosure document filed with the Minnesota Department of Commerce), Kiddie Academy Domestic Franchising, LLC Franchise Disclosure Document issued March 27, 2026, as amended September 22, 2026: Marked FDD, Minnesota CARDS file 7882 (document 37309-202609-02) (2026-09-22). Accessed 2026-11-07.
152. Celebree Enterprises, LLC (Celebree Schools; franchise disclosure document filed with the Minnesota Department of Commerce), Celebree Enterprises, LLC (Celebree Schools) Franchise Disclosure Document issued April 2, 2026, as amended April 13, 2026, Clean FDD (CARDS type 'Application (Form A) Clean FDD'), Minnesota CARDS file 9665 (document 35968-202604-03) (2026-04-13). Accessed 2026-11-07.
153. Creative World Schools Franchising Company, Inc. (franchise disclosure document filed with the Minnesota Department of Commerce), Creative World Schools Franchising Company, Inc. Franchise Disclosure Document, Clean FDD 2025, Minnesota CARDS file 10884 (2025-07-03). Accessed 2026-11-07.
154. First Things First (Arizona Early Childhood Development and Health Board, state agency), Brain Development | First Things First (Undated (first Wayback capture 2018-05-14)). Accessed 2026-11-07.
155. State of Michigan (MiKids Matter, michigan.gov; state government repeater), MiKids Matter (Undated). Accessed 2026-11-07.
156. Illinois General Assembly (325 ILCS 3/1-5, Department of Early Childhood Act), 325 ILCS 3/1-5 Findings (2024-06-25 (effective date)). Accessed 2026-11-07.
157. Bipartisan Policy Center (policy organization; advocate), The Science of Early Childhood (C.1) (2021-05). Accessed 2026-11-07.
158. Collaborative for Children (Houston early education nonprofit; runs centers), 90% of Brain Development Happens by Age 5 (2025-09-23). Accessed 2026-11-07.
159. First Things First (Arizona Early Childhood Development and Health Board, state agency), First Things First 2011 Annual Report (2011). Accessed 2026-11-07.
160. First Things First (Arizona Early Childhood Development and Health Board, state agency), Brain Science (First Things First, azftf.gov) (2008 (page copyright; captures from 2008-12-06)). Accessed 2026-11-07.
161. First Things First (Arizona Early Childhood Development and Health Board, state agency), First Things First 2012 Annual Report (2012). Accessed 2026-11-07.
162. Annals of Neurology (Dekaban and Sadowsky), Changes in brain weights during the span of human life: relation of brain weights to body heights and body weights (1978-10). Accessed 2026-11-07.
163. Delaware Journal of Public Health (Thompson, UC Davis), Early Brain Development and Public Health (2024-10-01). Accessed 2026-11-07.
164. Brain (Reiss et al., Kennedy Krieger Institute), Brain development, gender and IQ in children. A volumetric imaging study (1996-10). Accessed 2026-11-07.
165. Nature (Bethlehem, Seidlitz, White et al.), Brain charts for the human lifespan (2022-04-06). Accessed 2026-11-07.
166. Harvard University Center on the Developing Child, Brain Architecture (Undated). Accessed 2026-11-07.
167. Pennsylvania Office of Rural Health (Penn State; repeater), Child Care Costs Exceed College Tuition in 34 States (2022-02-28). Accessed 2026-11-07.
168. Children's Defense Fund (Schulman and Adams; advocate), ERIC record, The High Cost of Child Care Puts Quality Care Out of Reach for Many Families. Issue Brief. (1998). Accessed 2026-11-07.
169. Children's Defense Fund (Schulman; advocate), ERIC record, The High Cost of Child Care Puts Quality Care out of Reach for Many Families. Issue Brief. (2000). Accessed 2026-11-07.
170. Child Care Aware of America (association of CCR&R agencies; advocate), ERIC copy, Parents and the High Cost of Child Care: 2012 Report (2012). Accessed 2026-11-07.
171. Child Care Aware of America (association of CCR&R agencies; advocate), ERIC copy, Parents and the High Cost of Child Care: 2013 Report (2013). Accessed 2026-11-07.
172. Child Care Aware of America (association of CCR&R agencies; advocate), Parents and the High Cost of Child Care: 2016 Report (2016). Accessed 2026-11-07.
173. Child Care Aware of America (association of CCR&R agencies; advocate), Parents and the High Cost of Child Care: 2017 Report (2017-12). Accessed 2026-11-07.
174. EyeView Digital (video production and testing vendor; sold the videos it tested), EyeView - The new "Conversion" game (2008-12-04). Accessed 2026-11-07.
175. EyeView Digital (video production and testing vendor; sold the videos it tested), UMOO - a prime beef example of EyeView's success (2009-02-10). Accessed 2026-11-07.
176. EyeView Digital (video production and testing vendor; sold the videos it tested), Another video conversion success story (2009-11-10). Accessed 2026-11-07.
177. EyeView Digital (video production and testing vendor; sold the videos it tested), Making Video Accountable (EyeView white paper) (2010). Accessed 2026-11-07.
178. Unbounce (landing-page software seller), The benefits of using video on landing pages (2010-08). Accessed 2026-11-07.
179. WordStream (PPC advertising software seller), 6 Ways to Use Video to Increase Conversion Rates (2016-03-30). Accessed 2026-11-07.
180. Care for Kids (Australian child care listing site; sells video production to centres), How can I boost my enrolments with video? (Undated (first Wayback capture 2025-11-22)). Accessed 2026-11-07.
181. Beverly Boy Productions (video production company; sells to day care centers), Video Production for Day Care in the US (2025-10-08 (modified 2026-06-03)). Accessed 2026-11-07.
182. Unbounce (landing-page software seller; analysis of its own customers' pages), Video on landing pages means more conversions, right? Wrong. Here's why (2021-08-26). Accessed 2026-11-07.
183. High/Scope Educational Research Foundation (Schweinhart, Barnes, Weikart), ERIC record, Significant Benefits: The High/Scope Perry Preschool Study through Age 27 (1993). Accessed 2026-11-07.
184. Journal of Human Resources (Belfield, Nores, Barnett, Schweinhart), ERIC record, The High/Scope Perry Preschool Program: Cost-Benefit Analysis Using Data from the Age-40 Followup (2006). Accessed 2026-11-07.
185. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis (Nores, Belfield, Barnett, Schweinhart), ERIC record, Updating the Economic Impacts of the High/Scope Perry Preschool Program (2005). Accessed 2026-11-07.
186. The Heckman Equation (James Heckman's research communications project; advocate), The Lifecycle Benefits of an Influential Early Childhood Program: Frequently Asked Questions (2017-01). Accessed 2026-11-07.

Update policy and change log

We re-verify every figure quarterly and when a major source publishes a new edition. The next scheduled review is February 2027. Corrections go to contact@markstudios.com.

• Nov 7, 2026: First published with 637 figures from 68 publishers, each checked against its original source.