child care

YMCA CEO Mark Weber says their child care center serving St. Joseph and Benton Harbor is full, and he says downtown South Bend lacks a high-quality child care option for downtown workers.

The state stopped issuing new vouchers last December, and nearly 31,000 children were on the waitlist as of September.

As the Indiana Governor Mike Braun administration has cut funding for child care, a St. Joseph County group plans to ask local employers to invest in a fund to help child care providers with equipment, supplies and furniture.

United Way of St. Joseph County President and CEO Mark Herriman says the Trump and Braun administration cuts are short-sighted because studies show a 7-to-1 return on investment from public funding for quality early childhood care and education.

Families in Indiana often don’t have access to quality child care and early-learning education.

Families in Indiana are struggling to afford diapers. Advocates say efforts to make diapers more affordable and accessible haven’t gone far enough.

Current pay for juries in Indiana are equivalent to less than the minimum wage, court officials say, making it hard to get enough jurors. Indiana is close to creating a law that would double juror compensation, making them some of the highest paid in the nation.

Fathers could be ordered by Indiana courts to pay for more expenses related to childbirth than before under legislation headed to the Senate.

2022 was a unique year for Indiana’s labor market. New federal estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggest a record-high number of Hoosiers were working – but not as many as employers may need. Experts say such employment numbers don’t say much about why 2022’s labor market looked the way it did or about what the future holds.

It appears for now employers are still posting more jobs than the state’s available job seekers can fill. Experts say one cause of that could be a lack of access to affordable child care in Indiana. A state Senate committee is considering funding a pilot program that would split costs between families, employers and the state to bring more parents back into the workforce.