California's Central Valley has one licensed child-care slot for every five young children
Published 2026-11-07 · By Pushbuild · Data: Child Care Providers API – Licensed Daycare Centers and Homes in 9 States
Kern County has 18.6 licensed slots per 100 children under 5, Tulare 17.1, Stanislaus 18.1. The lowest in our data is Juniata County, Pennsylvania, at 7.4. At the other end, Delaware statewide has 128.7 slots per 100 and Colorado's Summit County 166.5.
Fewest slots per 100 children under 5 (counties with 1,000+)
| County | State | Slots | Children under 5 | Per 100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Juniata | PA | 103 | 1,394 | 7.4 |
| Adams | WA | 250 | 1,810 | 13.8 |
| Douglas | WA | 382 | 2,734 | 14.0 |
| Glenn | CA | 264 | 1,851 | 14.3 |
| Klickitat | WA | 158 | 1,046 | 15.1 |
| Kings | CA | 1,708 | 11,068 | 15.4 |
| Lake | CA | 599 | 3,740 | 16.0 |
| Shelby | TX | 284 | 1,690 | 16.8 |
| Del Norte | CA | 236 | 1,400 | 16.9 |
| Tulare | CA | 5,985 | 35,008 | 17.1 |
| San Benito | CA | 742 | 4,229 | 17.5 |
| Stevens | WA | 411 | 2,340 | 17.6 |
| Hill | TX | 383 | 2,114 | 18.1 |
| Stanislaus | CA | 6,788 | 37,447 | 18.1 |
| Kern | CA | 12,195 | 65,691 | 18.6 |
By state
| State | Slots | Children under 5 | Per 100 |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA | 742,751 | 2,214,141 | 33.5 |
| WA | 178,441 | 437,433 | 40.8 |
| PA | 411,598 | 685,379 | 60.1 |
| TX | 1,183,692 | 1,928,242 | 61.4 |
| NY | 708,155 | 1,102,961 | 64.2 |
| MA | 267,495 | 350,335 | 76.4 |
| CO | 261,857 | 315,470 | 83.0 |
| VT | 33,894 | 28,053 | 120.8 |
| DE | 70,206 | 54,545 | 128.7 |
Caveats
Licensed capacity counts school-age slots too, so places above 100 are possible. Connecticut is left out (capacity missing for most providers). Nine states.
Sources
- Child Care Providers API – Licensed Daycare Centers and Homes in 9 States: the primary sources are listed on the API page, read on 2026-11-07
Data as of 2026-11-07. Every figure in this post is in the table above and the CSV below.
Download the data behind this post: b2-childcare-county-extremes.csv · b2-childcare-slots-per-100-under5-by-state.csv
Get this data
Every number in this post comes from the Child Care Providers API – Licensed Daycare Centers and Homes in 9 States. $0.0008 per row returned; every key gets $1 of free usage each month.
curl -X POST https://api.pushbuild.com/child-care-providers/run \
-H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"maxItems": 20}'Embed this chart
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