DOD Struggles to Staff Child Care for 172,000 Military Children

Why It Matters

The Department of Defense operates the largest employer-sponsored child care program in the United States, serving nearly 172,000 children of service members and civilian employees. But the military's ability to staff these facilities is under strain.

A new Government Accountability Office report released in mid-June reveals how the military services are deploying financial incentives to recruit and retain the 19,000 child care workers needed to keep the program running.

The stakes are straightforward: without adequate staffing, military families face lengthy waitlists, and service members struggle to maintain readiness while managing child care logistics. Understanding how the military is addressing this workforce challenge illuminates broader tensions between military readiness and the quality-of-life commitments the Pentagon makes to its personnel.

The Big Picture

The Air Force alone employed 4,820 child care workers in 2024, while the Army employed 7,419 and the Marine Corps employed 2,307. The Space Force, whose child care program is overseen by the Air Force, operates 354 child development centers with dedicated staff. Across these three services, the numbers reflect the enormous logistical undertaking of providing care for military families stationed around the world.

The challenge of recruiting and retaining child care workers has been difficult for the Department of Defense, contributing to lengthy waitlists for military families. This is not a new problem. The GAO previously reported on military child care workforce challenges in 2024, signaling that policymakers and defense officials had already identified staffing as a critical issue requiring systematic examination.

Retention vs Recruitment

In response to these staffing pressures, the military services deployed recruitment bonuses and retention allowances across their child care workforces in 2024.

The Air Force, Army, and Marine Corps collectively provided 4,955 recruitment bonuses and retention allowances. The Air Force accounted for approximately 4,000 of these incentives, providing 429 recruitment bonuses and 3,645 retention allowances to its child care workers. The Army provided 56 recruitment bonuses and 399 retention allowances, while the Marine Corps provided 20 recruitment bonuses and 406 retention allowances.

A striking pattern emerges in these numbers: all three military services provided more retention allowances than recruitment bonuses. This suggests the services are prioritizing keeping existing workers over bringing in new ones, a strategy that may reflect both the difficulty of attracting new talent and the cost of training replacements.

The Navy was excluded from the quantitative analysis because Navy officials could not readily separate recruitment bonuses and retention allowances from performance awards, creating a data gap that limits a complete picture of incentive spending across the entire military.

Notably, no relocation bonuses were provided by the Air Force, Army, or Marine Corps to child care workers in 2024. This stands in contrast to other military personnel categories that regularly receive relocation support.

Additional Support

The military services supplement financial incentives with other forms of support. Military services provide child care fee discounts to workers, including a 100 percent fee discount for the first child enrolled at a DOD child development center. This benefit directly addresses the cost-of-living pressures that affect recruitment and retention.

Professional development also factors into the equation. Military services provide skills-based training and professional development, including mentoring, to child care workers. The Army has gone further, operating a classroom assessment system that focuses on child-teacher interactions and provides feedback to workers. The Army's classroom assessment system has helped improve classroom management and retention of child care workers, suggesting that investment in workforce quality can yield measurable returns.

GAO Investigation

The investigation into military child care incentives was not random. House Report 118-529 accompanying H.R. 8070, titled the Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025, includes a provision directing GAO to review recruitment and retention incentives for nonappropriated fund child care workers in DOD child development centers. This directive reflects congressional recognition that military child care staffing deserves specific attention within broader quality-of-life legislation.

The GAO report, published and publicly released on June 17, 2026, presents its findings in a question-and-answer format across 12 pages. The report does not list any formal recommendations, instead providing a straightforward accounting of how the military services are currently deploying incentives to address workforce challenges.

Geographic Patterns

The five states where the Air Force, Army, and Marine Corps collectively provided the most recruitment and retention incentives to child care workers in 2024 are California, Florida, Colorado, Texas, and Virginia. This geographic distribution likely reflects both the concentration of military installations in these states and the competitive labor markets that require higher incentive spending to attract and retain qualified staff.

The concentration of incentives in these five states underscores how military child care recruitment and retention strategies respond to regional economic conditions. Areas with higher costs of living and tighter labor markets require more aggressive compensation packages to maintain adequate staffing levels.

The Bottom Line

The GAO report provides a snapshot of incentive distribution but leaves open questions about efficacy. The data shows how much the military is spending on recruitment and retention, but not whether these investments are actually reducing waitlists or improving retention rates at meaningful levels. The exclusion of Navy data from the quantitative analysis also means the full scope of military incentive spending remains partially obscured.

As military families continue to navigate the challenges of accessing timely child care, and as the Department of Defense works to maintain readiness amid staffing constraints, the underlying tension remains: can financial incentives alone solve a workforce challenge that reflects broader labor market conditions and the demanding nature of child care work itself?

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