As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary this year, Oregon has 3 cities among the largest 250 in the nation.
Multnomah County, which contains Portland, runs 8.09 licensed childcare establishments per 1,000 children under five — roughly twice the national rate of 4.21 and three times the establishment density of any other top-30 city in the score. The pattern reflects two structural choices: Oregon's permissive family-childcare-home licensure and a Portland market that has historically supported small, neighborhood-anchored providers. The state's overall score is 60 — Moderate, ranked 12th of 50 — anchored by a 94/100 supply dimension, the highest in the West. Affordability remains a problem: infant care averages $17,587 a year and consumes 21.9% of household income, climbing to 26.4% inside Multnomah. But where most Pacific metros impose six-to-eighteen-month waitlists for any infant slot, Portland families have a real menu of choices. Supply density does not eliminate cost. It softens everything that compounds it.
Key highlights & actionable takeaways
- Moderate (60/100), 12th nationally — anchored by a 94/100 supply dimension, the highest in the West.
- Portland runs 8.09 licensed establishments per 1,000 kids under 5 — roughly twice national, triple the density of any other top-30 US city.
- Infant care still costs $17,587 a year, 21.9% of household income; affordability lands at 35/100, the cost ceiling supply density cannot break.
Affordability — 35/100
A typical Oregon family with one infant in center care spends $17,587 a year — within striking distance of the national $17,163 average and 21.9% of the state's $80,426 median household income. Set against the state's $1,450 median monthly rent, that infant tuition runs essentially equal to a full year of rent (a ratio of 1.01). For families in lower-cost regions of the state — Salem, Eugene, the Willamette Valley outside Multnomah County — those numbers are absorbable but tight. For Portland families, where Multnomah County's NDCP infant rate hits $23,405 and the cost burden climbs to 26.4% of HHI, the math shifts into burden territory.
Family childcare home settings tell a different story than centers do here. Oregon's $10,349 family-childcare-home infant rate is one of the most competitive in the Pacific — meaningfully cheaper than the $14,600+ family-childcare-home rates in California and Washington — and one reason Oregon families opt for in-home settings at slightly higher rates than coastal counterparts. Center care prices push families toward family childcare; family childcare prices keep them there.
The state's affordability dimension lands at 35/100 because center prices are still high in absolute terms even where they look reasonable in relative ones. Oregon does not have California's price ceiling problem, but it has California's wage-vs-price compression problem.
Supply — 94/100
This is Oregon's signature dimension and the reason it ranks 12th nationally despite middling affordability. The state operates 1,718 licensed childcare establishments — 8.09 per 1,000 children under five — almost twice the national norm of 4.21 and the densest provider network in any state in the Pacific. Oregon licenses 107,850 slots against a Bipartisan Policy Center estimate of 163,170 children with potential need, producing a 34.9% gap that is bad in absolute terms but materially better than Washington's 45.3% or Hawaii's 60.7%.
Portland is the structural standout. Multnomah County's licensed-establishment density runs roughly three times that of any other top-30 city in the score dataset — a pattern that reflects both Oregon's permissive family-childcare-home licensure and a Portland market that has historically supported small-scale, neighborhood-anchored providers in a way Seattle and San Francisco have not. The result for Portland families is a real menu of choices: in most other Pacific metros families wait six to eighteen months for an infant slot at any quality tier; in Portland the wait is typically shorter and the substitutability between center, family childcare home, and nanny share is meaningfully higher.
The supply density does not eliminate the cost problem — abundant providers at $23,405 a year are still $23,405 a year — but it does soften the second-order pressures (long commutes to whichever provider has an opening, single-source dependence, displacement when one provider closes) that compound the cost burden in supply-thin states.
Workforce — 75/100
Oregon's median childcare worker earns $17.43 an hour — $36,250 annually — against a $26.46 single-adult living wage, putting state educators at 65.9% of survival earnings. That is a stronger ratio than the national 62.6% and squarely in the second-best tier in the country, anchoring the 74.5 dimension score. The combination of a healthy provider count and competitive (relative to other care states) educator pay is what creates Oregon's supply abundance: when wages clear two-thirds of a living wage, retention is meaningfully better than at the 55-60% ratios that define Hawaii, California, and several Sun Belt states.
The implication for families is concrete. National research on early-educator turnover (Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, 2024) finds that wages in Oregon's percentile range produce annual workforce churn in the 15-25% band rather than the 30-40% band typical of below-60% states. Oregon parents are statistically more likely to keep the same lead infant teacher across an enrollment year than parents in California — a continuity factor that pediatric and developmental research consistently identifies as material to early outcomes.
Family Strain — 45/100
Mothers' labor force participation among women with children under six sits at 67.5% — essentially in line with the national 68.2% and the highest in the Pacific. Single-parent share is 31.4%, just below national. The composite reads as a state where families have not been priced out of the second income at the rate their southern and northern neighbors have, in part because the state's supply abundance has kept the practical (not just financial) cost of childcare lower.
The 45/100 score is held down by the same underlying fact that pulls down most western states: high housing costs against modest wages mean two earners are economically necessary for most families, and the friction of finding and paying for childcare adds real strain even when the slot is technically available. Portland's family-strain score of 76/100 is significantly stronger than the state composite, again because the city's supply density removes one major friction point.
Policy Support — 50/100
Oregon offers 12 weeks of paid family leave at 100% wage replacement — the most generous wage-replacement rate in the country, effective 2023. State pre-K serves 17% of 4-year-olds and 12% of 3-year-olds at $18,637 per child — the highest per-child pre-K spending in the Pacific and among the top tier nationally — with NIEER scoring 7.6 of 10 quality benchmarks met. CCDF subsidy reach is 14.9%, serving 16,500 children monthly. Head Start enrolls 5,613 kids, with 1,828 in Early Head Start.
The 49.7/100 policy score reflects the gap between Oregon's quality investment per pre-K child (very high) and its enrollment reach (moderate). The state has built a high-quality, well-funded program that serves a relatively small share of the eligible population — a different policy posture than California's volume-first approach.
City spotlight
Oregon contributes three cities to the score. Salem posts the state's highest city score at 59/100 — Moderate, in-state #1 — driven by lower county-level prices and a wage structure friendlier to early educators than Portland's. Portland (52) ranks second in-state, with Family Strain at 76/100 (a Pacific-region high) and the country-leading establishment density already covered above. Eugene (48, Strained) trails the field, dragged down by a higher relative cost burden against more modest local incomes. The 11-point spread is narrow by Pacific standards — Oregon is the most uniform Pacific state in the index.
In-home care in Oregon
Portland is the state's mature in-home childcare market, with full-time live-out nanny rates running roughly $25-32/hour and a particularly active nanny-share culture concentrated in Northeast and Southeast Portland neighborhoods. Salem and Eugene rates run lower, typically $20-26/hour, in line with the broader Willamette Valley pattern. The state's relatively permissive family-childcare-home regulations have historically blurred the line between formal in-home settings and informal nanny arrangements — many Oregon families operate in a hybrid space that does not exist as cleanly in California or Washington.
Au pair placements through State Department-designated sponsor agencies run roughly $27,000-$30,000 all-in for live-in care; Oregon's host-family count is meaningful for a state of its size, particularly in the Portland metro. The combination of supply density (which keeps centers and family childcare available as alternatives) and Oregon's two-parent-friendly policy environment (12 weeks at 100% paid leave) means in-home care here is more often a chosen preference than a forced workaround — a different demand profile than what defines the in-home market in supply-thin Hawaii or Alaska.
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). State-level prices and supply use population-weighted county aggregates; city scores use the city's primary containing county. 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 (2018 base, 2023 DOL-projected, 2025 forward-projected); Child Care Aware of America 2024 anchor; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS (May 2024) and QCEW NAICS 624410 (2024); EPI Family Budget Calculator and MIT Living Wage Calculator; Bipartisan Policy Center / Buffett Early Childhood Institute / Child Care Aware childcaregap.org (Sept 2025); NIEER State of Preschool Yearbook 2024; HHS ACF CCDF FY2023; National Partnership for Women & Families (March 2026).