Kudos to the Concord Monitor for Sunday's editorial highlighting the importance of affordable child care to an economic recovery. The Monitor editorial provides an intelligent and concise description of why access to quality, affordable child care is a crucial component of the state's economy.

The editorial also makes the business case for why the availability of child care is so important to employee productivity, and how it can contribute to the bottom line of any business whose workforce struggles to balance work and parental responsibilities.

The Monitor also recognizes the current political environment as a challenging one in which to advocate for an increased government role in making child care affordable for working families. Child care subsidies that allow parents to take and keep jobs are consistent with tax breaks for businesses that create jobs.

State programs that reduce the cost of child care are a critical source of support for those on the bottom rung of the economy, and are needed to assist in New Hampshire's economic recovery. Two thousand children in NH are on a waiting list for child care subsidies. Each of those families' stories is related to parents' ability or inability to fill jobs as they become available. Our employers will need those workers, and we can help parents of young children be productive workers by ensuring that affordable child care is available.

If you agree, you might send your legislators a copy of the Monitor's editorial. Here's the link.

There are solutions to the child care dilemma, and they require both public consensus and public will. Many other states have recognized the importance of child care, and have improved both the quality and affordability of care. Their public investment strategies will yield economic benefits. New Hampshire could embrace these models to improve our child care system.