The Grand Rapids Herald Review reports…

This week Rural Pathways released “Child Care as Workforce Infrastructure,” a policy brief making the economic case for treating child care as core workforce infrastructure across the Taconite Assistance Area (TAA), alongside broadband, housing, and roads. The brief’s release anchors a three-forum regional series — one held April 21 in Grand Rapids focused on Itasca County, a second April 22 at the Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm, and a third scheduled for June in Silver Bay for Lake County — where employers, providers, chambers, and county leaders are gathering to translate the findings into regional action.

The brief documents a workforce gap that keeps nearly 700 Iron Range workers out of the labor force and puts roughly $521 million in annual regional economic activity at stake — $468 million currently generated by dual-caregiver working families in the TAA, plus an estimated $53 million in new activity that would come online if the three counties currently below the statewide workforce participation rate caught up to it.