Hunger is increasing among those who provide care to young children
December 18, 2025
The Stanford Center on Early Childhood released a RAPID report that looks at how issues of food insecurity and hunger are affecting adults who provide care for young children. Their key finding: hunger is on the rise among child care providers.
Why This Matters
Child care providers work tirelessly to nurture, teach and keep children safe every day. Those participating in CACFP are also devoted to providing the children in their care with nutritious meals each day and ensuring they don’t go hungry. Meanwhile, many providers themselves are experiencing hunger. If these challenges faced by child care providers are not addressed, more and more caregivers will leave jobs in child care to find better paying positions and the child care crisis will continue.
Having Enough Food is a Struggle for a Significant Percentage of Child Care Providers
Provider hunger is a persistent and serious challenge that is growing sharply.
From June 2021 through May 2025, (44%) of child care providers surveyed, on average, experienced hunger.
In June 2025, more than half (58%) of child care providers surveyed experienced hunger, one of the highest rates recorded since RAPID began collecting this data in 2021.
In responses to open-ended questions, child care providers wrote that they are concerned about their ability to reliably access food for themselves and their family and that they are stressed about having to pay more as the cost of groceries increases. Providers also shared that they skip meals and eat less so that the young children in their care have enough food.
Hunger is a Struggle for Child Care Providers that Cuts Across Roles and Settings
Hunger is a widespread issue affecting child care providers across all types of roles and settings.
In June 2025, center teachers (66%) were particularly affected by hunger, followed by home-based providers (52%) and FFN providers (46%). Even among higher-paying provider roles, 21% of center directors reported hunger.
Although the percentages differ across child care provider roles and settings, the fact that a large percentage of providers across all provider roles and settings reported hunger points to the presence of broad economic challenges the early care and education workforce faces.
These experiences of hunger compromise providers' health, well-being, and ability to support the positive development of young children.
These data demand urgent attention from policymakers to shape policies and programs that improve providers’ ability to meet basic needs, including food.
Conclusion
Over the past four years of the RAPID project, a substantial percentage of child care providers across all roles and settings have reported experiencing hunger. These trends are worsening and in June 2025 reached one of the highest levels since the study began in 2021.
Economic uncertainty and the rising cost of food and other basic needs are creating significant financial strain for providers. Other analyses show 43% of the early care and education workforce relies on programs like SNAP to make ends meet. The shutdown of the federal government and resulting disruptions to SNAP will immediately impact provider hunger, a situation that will continue to worsen amid federal changes to nutrition programs, including cuts to SNAP and WIC and stricter eligibility requirements.
These economic challenges undermine caregiver well-being and children’s development and are likely to increase provider turnover and program closures, creating additional disruptions for children and families. The prevalence of hunger in the early care and education workforce makes it essential to implement policies that support providers’ ability to meet basic needs and thereby promote the well-being of children, families, and communities.
For more information, read the RAPID factsheet: Hunger is increasing among those who provide care to young children.