Editor’s note: This essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here.
Mississippi is facing a child care crisis.
Those directly impacted – our kids, working parents and day care providers – are calling on the state to utilize existing state and federal Temporary Aid for Needy Families funds to fill the gap and ensure all eligible working families have access to child care.
As a state senator proudly representing the hard-working families of Hinds County, I’m joining them in that call.
The crisis is coming from many directions. As a result of expired pandemic funds, nearly 20,000 families in Mississippi are now on a growing wait list for child care vouchers – coupons that make child care affordable for low-income working parents. Then there’s President Donald Trump’s federal budget bill, known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which pays for trillions of dollars in tax cuts to billionaires and corporations by cutting Medicaid and food assistance for hundreds and thousands of our neighbors. And the bill’s child care provisions do little to help the crisis families face.
On top of all of that, this year the federal government announced a federal funding freeze, paired with a notice that it was rescinding rules permitting states to pay providers without verifying attendance logs. All of this has added to the confusion and stress of Mississippi’s child care providers, and the parents who depend on them.
But these are not just numbers, statistics, legislative or executive actions. These are thousands of working families without vouchers trying to piece together haphazard child care with family members, or going into debt with their child care providers.
Child care providers carry the burden too, eating the cost and risking closure. Child care providers are small business owners and have monthly obligations that they must meet.
I recently had an opportunity to tour the Agape Christian Academy World Day Care in my district and learned firsthand the challenges the child care center is facing daily. The owner, Cantrell Keyes, told me that her center has the capacity to serve 75 students, but because of the cut in vouchers her center is now serving only 22 students.
Her center once received $23,00 per month in child care vouchers, but is now receiving $5,000 a month. Her overhead is the same. This has put stress on her center to make payroll and to keep the center open to provide quality child care to these families.
Many parents are facing a dilemma of whether to work or to stay home with their children because they cannot afford to pay for quality child care. Leaving their child at home unattended is not an option.
I spoke with Sharon Watson, a single parent who works in the private sector. As a result of the voucher crisis, her payment for child care went from $60 a week to $200 a week. That limits what she can provide for her child. She said that she is thankful that Cantrell Keyes at Agape Christian Academy World Day Care understands her circumstances and is working with her to continue providing the quality care that her child is receiving.
Cutting off or slowing child care funding worsens the state’s affordability crisis, with disastrous impacts for parents, children, workers and the economy.
It just takes one day without child care for a parent to lose a job, and only a few weeks without funding for a child care provider to shut its doors for good. According to a recent survey by the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative, 170 licensed child care centers in the state closed in 2025. That’s the highest number in nearly a decade. But Mississippi officials have the power and the money to act.
It just so happens that the Mississippi Department of Human Services has $156 million in stockpiled federal TANF funds that can be used to address the child care voucher wait list and ensure thousands of families get the child care they need, allowing providers to keep doing their invaluable work. Using part of the $156 million can provide immediate relief.
I was encouraged to see Mississippi Human Services Director Bob Anderson commit to pursuing a solution to address this crisis at a state Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee meeting on Jan. 21. He was also open to receiving $60 million in state appropriations to address this crisis.
With the cost of care for one child averaging $5,000-$7,000 a year and not enough child care for families who need it, working families are finding it harder and harder to access care they can afford. Mississippi should learn from other states like New Mexico, which recently made child care free for everyone.
In this crisis, it is essential the state acts swiftly. Families and day care providers alike are counting on us. And in the future, we need a new approach to avoid a crisis like this from happening again.
This is possible, if we work together and prioritize the prosperity of working families in our great state.
Bio: Democratic Sen. Hillman Frazier has represented state Senate District 27 in Hinds County since 1993. Frazier, a consultant, previously served in the Mississippi House.
