As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary this year, Fayetteville ranks the 114th largest city in the nation.

Fort Liberty is the largest US Army installation in the country, and the deployment cycle of its 50,000-plus service members reshapes the math of childcare in surrounding Cumberland County. Just 60.2% of Fayetteville mothers with children under six are in the labor force — the lowest figure in this report — because spouses of deployed soldiers face well-documented employment barriers. Infant center care runs $11,015 a year, $6,100 below the national median, and supply data shows only 26.7 licensed civilian slots per 100 working-parent kids — desert-grade — partly because Department of Defense child development centers operate on-installation outside that count. Civilians get 12 unpaid weeks under FMLA. Primary-caregiver military parents get 12 weeks paid. Two childcare economies, one ZIP code.

Key highlights & actionable takeaways

Score 43 (Strained), ranked 191 of 250 — lowest mothers' labor force participation in this cluster (60.2%), shaped by Fort Liberty deployment cycles.
Cumberland County is a childcare desert at 26.7 licensed slots per 100 working-parent kids; infant care $11,015/year, $6,100 below national median.
Civilian families get 12 unpaid FMLA weeks; military primary caregivers get 12 paid weeks — two childcare economies in one metro.

Actionable takeaways

Fort Liberty distorts every metric. On-installation DoD child development centers don't count in licensed civilian capacity, and military-spouse employment barriers explain the 60.2% mothers' LFP figure — read this report as the civilian Fayetteville number, not the whole metro.
The two-leave-policy gap is the local equity story. A primary-caregiver soldier gets 12 weeks paid; their civilian neighbor working at Cape Fear Valley Health gets 12 weeks unpaid — same county, different federal floor.
Same NC desert ratio, different cause. 26.7 slots per 100 kids matches the statewide pattern, but Fayetteville's gap is partly an artifact of the DoD/civilian split, not pure capacity shortfall.

Affordability — 67/100

A year of infant center care in Cumberland County runs about $11,015 — well below the national median of $17,163 and among the lowest in the index for a metro of Fayetteville's size. For a Fayetteville household earning the city's $56,395 median income, that's 19.5% of pre-tax income — still nearly three times the federal 7%-affordable benchmark, but a meaningfully different burden than the 24%+ figures in Durham or 35%+ in Baltimore. The childcare-to-rent ratio is 0.78, meaning a month of infant tuition costs about three-quarters of a month's rent in a city where rent runs $1,179. A typical Fayetteville family with one infant in center care pays roughly $6,100 less per year than the national median family — a real if narrow margin against the city's lower household income.

Supply — 33/100

Fayetteville is a childcare desert. Cumberland County reports about 8,140 licensed slots against roughly 30,518 kids under 5 with working parents — 26.7 slots per 100, well below the 30-per-100 desert threshold and far below the 73-per-100 national benchmark. The county counts 103 licensed establishments serving 16,043 city children under 5 — 4.2 establishments per 1,000, on par with the national rate. The supply story is partly distorted by Fort Liberty's separate Department of Defense child development centers, which serve military families on-installation and aren't reflected in licensed civilian capacity. Statewide, North Carolina reports a 55.9% childcare gap.

Workforce — 60/100

Fayetteville's median childcare worker earns $13.44 an hour — about $27,960 annually — or 63.4% of the $21.21 local living wage for a single adult, slightly above the 62.6% national benchmark. The gap between pay and cost-of-living is narrower here than in higher-cost NC metros, which is why workforce posts as one of Fayetteville's better-scoring dimensions. Center directors still face turnover competition with retail and food-service jobs in the metro's military-adjacent service economy.

Family strain — 15/100

This is the lowest score in the cluster and the headline strain. About 60.2% of Fayetteville mothers with children under 6 are in the labor force — well below the 68.2% national rate and the lowest figure in this report. Single-parent households make up 45.4% of families with children, well above the 31.8% national share. The combination is driven by Fort Liberty's footprint: spouses of deployed service members face well-documented employment barriers, and the city has a high share of households where one parent is on extended deployment. Median household income of $56,395 sits well below the $78,538 national figure. The result is a metro where childcare access shapes whether the second adult in a household can hold paid work at all.

Policy support — 24/100

North Carolina enrolls 22% of 4-year-olds in state pre-K and spends $7,117 per enrolled child, meeting 9 of 10 NIEER quality benchmarks — strong quality, narrow reach. CCDF subsidy reach is 13.4%. The state has no paid family leave program. For the substantial military-family share of Fayetteville's parent population, federal Department of Defense parental leave policy (12 weeks paid for primary caregivers) is far more relevant than state policy — but for civilian families the state-level baseline applies. Policy is measured at the state level.

In-home care in Fayetteville

In-home care in Fayetteville typically reflects metro-wide nanny market patterns, with full-time live-out rates somewhat below the broader North Carolina market, consistent with the city's lower overall wage levels. Demand concentrates around Cape Fear Valley Health clinical staff and military-spouse households needing flexible coverage during deployments or unpredictable PCS-related transitions. Military Family Care, base-affiliated networks, and Department of Defense-subsidized in-home arrangements also reshape the market here in ways they don't in non-military metros. Nanny shares are a quieter pattern in Fayetteville than in higher-priced cities.

Methodology: The the score is a 0-100 composite score across five dimensions: Affordability (30 pts), Supply (25 pts), Workforce Health (15 pts), Family Strain (15 pts), and Policy Support (15 pts). City-level prices and supply use the city's primary containing county. Policy Support is measured at the state level. Full methodology and data sources: beverly.io/research/methodology.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2019-2023 5-year estimates; U.S. Department of Labor Women's Bureau National Database of Childcare Prices; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS (May 2024) and QCEW; Buffett Early Childhood Institute / Bipartisan Policy Center / Child Care Aware childcaregap.org (Sept 2025); NIEER State of Preschool Yearbook 2024; HHS ACF CCDF FY2023; National Partnership for Women & Families (March 2026).

Methodology. The State of Childcare Index is a 0-100 composite score across five dimensions: Affordability (30 pts), Supply (25 pts), Workforce Health (15 pts), Family Strain (15 pts), and Policy Support (15 pts). Each dimension draws on publicly available federal data: U.S. Census ACS (5-year), DOL Women's Bureau NDCP, BLS OEWS and QCEW, the Buffett/BPC/CCAoA childcaregap.org dataset, NIEER State of Preschool, and HHS ACF CCDF reports. City-level prices and supply use the city's primary containing county. Policy Support is measured at the state level. Full methodology and data sources: /research/methodology.