Ricky Feir on Childcare in Nebraska

So, as I said from the outset, we're starting to talk in Nebraska about the much bigger picture and how childcare is a factor in attracting and retaining young families in Nebraska, right? Why should we, Ricky, think of childcare as an economic competitiveness issue rather than simply just a family issue?

Yeah.

So, um, I promise this is related, but, um, if you think about reliability, what are some automobile company names that come to mind for you?

I didn't realize this was gonna be a-

It's, it's-

But Ford, uh, um, uh, Jeep, and General Motors, Toyota.

Yeah.

So there's, there's some companies that maybe if they were to maximize in the very short run, they would lose out on reliability.

And the trust that you have for a company for its reliability certainly adds to the value that you have for it.

And I think similarly when it comes to childcare, the bet that people are making on where they live is a long-term bet, and the reliability and the reputation that states have built for where is a good place to raise a family, I think the data shows is kind of in that center line of the United States from North Dakota down to Texas, as well as some other states along the way.

And we see that people are making that bet by the percentage of the population that are five and younger, in that people are either moving to those states to then have those families, or people feel safe about growing a family within those states.

So there's a number of different factors, affordability certainly being one of them, of individuals feeling like these are good places to raise a family, and that's a part of the reputation and the economic, um, landscape that those states deserve some credit for and have set.

So in that sense, a lot of economically focused policies have been beneficial to those states, and that's allowed families to grow and move to those states with a high population of children.