# 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](https://pushbuild.com/apis/child-care-providers.html)

**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](https://pushbuild.com/apis/child-care-providers.html), 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](https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/data/b2-childcare-county-extremes.csv) · [b2-childcare-slots-per-100-under5-by-state.csv](https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/data/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](https://pushbuild.com/apis/child-care-providers.html). $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}'
```

[API docs and key](https://pushbuild.com/apis/child-care-providers.html)[More analysis from this data](https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/api/child-care-providers/)Embed this chart

Free to reuse with the credit link. Paste this HTML into your page, or use the [SVG file](https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/child-care-slots-per-child-by-county/chart.svg).

Want a table like this in Google Sheets, refreshed on demand? Free script: [copy a web table into Google Sheets](https://pushbuild.com/free/scripts/website-table-to-sheets/).

## Related analysis

-

Health & care · 2026-11-07

### [Texas foster agencies and residential centers average more than twice the violations of daycares](https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/texas-child-care-violations/)

Texas general residential operations averaged 7.8 cited violations over three years and child-placing agencies 7.9, against 3.0 for licensed…

-

Health & care · 2026-11-07

### [Most rated daycares sit at the bottom of their state's star scale](https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/daycare-quality-ratings-by-state/)

In Pennsylvania 2,966 providers are at STAR 1, the lowest of four levels, against 2,280 at STAR 4. In Colorado 1,380 are at level 1 of 5 and 181 at…

-

Health & care · 2026-11-07

### [Special-needs plans grew 157% since 2020](https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/special-needs-plan-enrollment-growth/)

Enrollment in Medicare special-needs plans rose from 3.27 million in January 2020 to 8.40 million in October 2026; other Medicare Advantage plans…

Header photo: [Carol M. Highsmith](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Exterior_view_of_the_William_H._Welch_Medical_Library,_the_library_of_the_Johns_Hopkins_Hospital_in_Baltimore,_Maryland_LCCN2013650459.tif), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

---
As of 2026-11-07. Source: https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/child-care-slots-per-child-by-county/