The Role of Early Childhood Education in Delaware’s Business Sector Pandemic Recovery and Beyond

With greater vaccine availability and lower COVID-19 case numbers, the Delaware business community is focused on the road to economic recovery ahead.¹ However, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will persist into the coming months — even years — making the return to work especially difficult for the 48 percent of Delaware’s labor force with children.² The pandemic has exposed the need for innovative public-private solutions to challenges facing working families and has underscored the importance of child care to regional economies. An accessible, high-quality early childhood education (ECE) sector is a critical component of infrastructure needed for the Delaware economy to make a full and sustaining economic recovery for years to come.