As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary this year, Tulsa ranks the 47th largest city in the nation.

For two decades, Tulsa has been the national reference point for universal pre-K. The Educare model funded by the George Kaiser Family Foundation became required reading for early-childhood researchers; Oklahoma's 66% enrollment of four-year-olds is the figure other states aspire to. None of it shows up in Tulsa's overall score. The city ranks third of three in Oklahoma at 40/100, 210th of 250 nationally — pulled down by a $58,407 median household income against an infant slot of $12,467 a year, and by the 41.6% of households with children headed by a single parent, ten points above the national share. The pre-K floor begins at age four. The arithmetic that breaks Tulsa families happens in the years before.

Key highlights & actionable takeaways

Score 40 (Strained), ranked 210 of 250; third of Oklahoma's three cities despite the country's most-cited universal pre-K program.
Infant care $12,467/year — 21.3% of $58,407 median income; pre-K reach of 66% doesn't begin until age four.
Single parents head 41.6% of households with children — about 10 points above the 31.8% national share, the principal drag on the overall score.

Actionable takeaways

Famous for pre-K, ranked third of three in its own state. Educare and Tulsa's universal pre-K reach are real — and they begin at age four. The city's #210 finish is set in the under-three years that no Oklahoma policy touches.
The Tulsa hybrid schedule is policy-fitted. Pre-K from 8 to noon plus in-home care from noon to evening is the locally rational arrangement; it makes the published price gap look smaller than the working-family experience.
41.6% single-parent share is the principal drag. Universal pre-K helps four-year-olds in those homes; it does not fix the under-three childcare math for a single earner at $58,407 median income.

Affordability — 45/100

Center infant care in Tulsa County costs about $12,467 a year, almost identical to the Oklahoma City figure. But Tulsa's median household income is lower — $58,407 versus Oklahoma City's $66,702 — so the same price tag claims 21.3% of pre-tax earnings here, against 18.7% in the capital. That puts Tulsa right at the national affordability burden line of 21.9% despite having absolute prices well below the national $17,163. Median rent is $998, which means a family with one infant in center care is paying more for daycare than for the apartment, at a 1.04 ratio. A typical Tulsa family with one infant in care spends roughly $1,500 more per year than a state-median family on the same slot.

Supply — 33/100

Tulsa County reports about 21,467 licensed slots against 55,622 kids under five with working parents — 38.6 slots per 100, the same county-level ratio as Oklahoma City because the state allocates licensed capacity proportionally. The county has 169 establishments at 3.74 providers per 1,000 kids under five, slightly below the national norm. The number of slots itself is not the binding crisis here — it's the same statewide 34% gap the Bipartisan Policy Center documents — but slot availability for infants and toddlers, the populations not served by Oklahoma's pre-K program, is the daily friction Tulsa families describe.

Workforce — 50/100

The median Tulsa-area childcare worker earns $13.08 an hour, or $27,200 a year for full-time work. The single-adult living wage in Tulsa County is $21.28 an hour, putting the typical worker at 61.5% of self-sufficiency — better than the Oklahoma City reading of 53.7% but well short of the threshold most CCAoA workforce studies flag as a retention floor. With 2,060 workers in the local industry, the workforce is small enough that any major center closure or program expansion meaningfully shifts wages and waitlists.

Family strain — 25.3/100

The family-strain dimension is where Tulsa pulls below most peers. Single-parent households account for 41.6% of families with children — ten points above the national share and one of the highest readings in the index. Mothers' labor force participation for kids under six is 63%, slightly below the national 68.2% and consistent with the lower household-income profile. The combined picture is of a city where a large share of families are solving the childcare equation with one income and fewer fallback adults, which is why the dimension score lands at 25.3.

Policy support — 48.0/100

Oklahoma's policy environment is identical for every city: 66% of four-year-olds enrolled in state pre-K at $5,133 per child, meeting 9 of 10 NIEER quality benchmarks; 6% of three-year-olds served. Tulsa's Educare, the George Kaiser Family Foundation-backed early-learning model, has been a national reference point in early-childhood research for two decades, but the state-level policy reading is unchanged from Oklahoma City. There is no state paid family or medical leave. CCDF subsidies reach 15.8% of eligible children. Policy is measured at the state level.

In-home care in Tulsa

In-home care in Tulsa reflects metro-wide nanny market patterns, with full-time live-out rates in line with the broader Tulsa-area market. Families often pair Oklahoma's universal pre-K with afternoon nanny coverage, which has produced a recognizable schedule — pre-K from 8 to noon, in-home care from noon to evening — that helps two-earner households bridge the gap without buying a full-day center slot. Nanny shares between two families are a common workaround for infant care; au pair placements remain less established than in coastal metros.

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.