The neighborhood a child grows up in can shape their long-term success, affecting their economic mobility as adults. While Governor Newsom has pledged to create a "California for All," currently opportunities for children are not evenly distributed across the state. Policymakers who aim to boost opportunity and improve children's life-long prospects can strategically invest in subsidized child care and development programs that serve families with low and moderate incomes by targeting areas that have been left behind.

According to a Budget Center analysis of federal survey data, an estimated 2 million children from birth through age 12 were eligible for subsidized child care and development programs in California in 2017 - roughly 1 in 3 children across the state (32.2%). The share of children eligible by county varied dramatically, with the highest shares of eligible children living in counties in the Central Valley - a region with some of the state's highest poverty rates. Kings County had the highest share, with more than half of all children in the county eligible for subsidized care (50.9%). (See Map below.) More than half of the children in the county group of Colusa, Glenn, Shasta, Tehama, and Trinity were also eligible (50.2%). Conversely, the counties with the lowest share of eligible children were in and around the San Francisco Bay Area and Lake Tahoe, where the cost of living is significantly higher. San Mateo County had the lowest share of eligible children, with 14.9% of children in the county eligible for subsidized care. Because the cost of living is considerably higher in these counties, many families with incomes too high to qualify for subsidized care may still struggle to afford early care and education for their children.

The five counties with the largest number of eligible children were all located in Southern California: Los Angeles (539,900), San Bernardino (154,000), San Diego (149,600), Riverside (147,900), and Orange (136,900). (See Table below.) Collectively, these five counties accounted for more than half of all children birth through age 12 eligible for subsidized child care and development programs in the state. Los Angeles County alone accounted for more than 1 in 4 eligible children in California (26.6%).

Of the 2 million children eligible for subsidized care in California in 2017, just 1 in 9 children were enrolled in a program that could accommodate families for more than a couple hours per day and throughout the entire year (228,100). The share of eligible children enrolled in a state program also varied across the state. (See Table below.) For example, in Orange County just 1 in 16 eligible children were enrolled in a subsidized program (6.1%). Riverside County also had a large number of eligible children but a very low share enrolled in a state program (7.3%). In contrast, due in part to a long history of prioritizing early care and education at the local level, nearly half of all eligible children were enrolled in a subsidized program in San Francisco (49.5%).