Section I. Child Care Challenges in Allegheny County
Allegheny County’s early care and education system includes a wide array of regulated child care and out-of-school time programs designed to support working families (see Box 1). According to the Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning, there are 721 regulated child care facilities in the county with capacity to serve about 40,000 children when fully staffed. iii This mixed-delivery system offers important infrastructure to support working families. Yet, Allegheny County—like many communities throughout the United States iv —has faced significant barriers to ensuring equitable access to stable, regulated child care for many working families in the county. This section provides historical context for the ACCM Pilot Program by describing these barriers— beginning with an examination of child care shortages, then exploring the financial barriers that prohibit many families from accessing care. This section concludes with the broader implications of these gaps on parents’ employment and workforce participation. 3 Whenever possible, we leverage extant data and reflections from focus group participants to further enhance our description of the historical context.
Box 1. Types of Child Care in Allegheny County’s Mixed-Delivery System Allegheny County’s mixed-delivery system includes a variety of regulated early learning and out-of-school time programs and relative care, including:
Child care centers serve seven or more children not related to the owner/operator. Some child care centers serve school-age children in out-of-school time programs .
Group child care homes serve seven to 12 children of various ages or seven to 15 children from fourth grade through age 15.
Family child care homes serve four to six children in the provider’s home.
Relative care providers are grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, uncles, or older siblings providing care to a child. They must be age 18 or older and live in a residence separate from the child for whom they provide care. Grandparents can provide care for up to six children at one time and other eligible family members can provide care for up to three children. Relative care providers must pass state and Federal background checks.
Child Care Shortages in Allegheny County Recent data suggest that there is a child care shortage in Allegheny County. In 2022, about 52,700 children under age six had parents who were working or able to work. v Yet, estimates from 2025 indicate there are only around 40,000 available child care slots in the county vi —leaving about 12,700 young children who cannot be served by regulated providers in Allegheny County. During the ACCM Pilot Program Evaluation focus groups, both families and providers underscored the real-world challenges associated with these gaps—noting that many families who seek care are often put on long waiting lists. These challenges also extend into elementary years. In Pennsylvania, for every child currently enrolled in an out-of-school time program, four more would participate if a suitable program were available. vii
3 This chapter draws on the following data sources: (1) publicly available data for the county and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, (2) focus groups with parents who participated in the ACCM Pilot Program, and (3) focus groups with child care providers who serve families participating in the ACCM Pilot Program. For more information about the evaluation methods, please see Appendix A.
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