Adrien Wilkie is home with her 4-month-old son Thomas in Carrboro, North Carolina. She has just finished up work for the day and baby Thomas is in a good mood.

“You want to give a smile? You have such a big smile,” Wilkie says as she plays with her son.

Normally, Thomas would be napping at this time. He’d usually still be at day care with his older sister, but his child care center closed its infant room that day.

“A neighbor provided care, so yeah, he was home today and we made it work,” Wilkie said.

His normal day care providers were out to make a point. They billed it as “A Day Without Childcare” and many providers say it’s a sign of things to come.

The child care industry has long faced financial challenges and precariously slim profit margins. But early in the pandemic, Congress put forth $39 billion to keep child care centers open. Providers were able to pay their rent, stock up on face masks and cleaning supplies, raise teachers’ salaries and help parents of young children get back to work.

Many centers across the country now may have to permanently close because the federal COVID-19 relief funds are drying up. Some states like North Carolina used other federal funds to continue grants to child care centers through this summer. The clock is ticking.

In a recent survey, nearly a third of child care providers in the state said they may have to shut their door. That mirrors national estimates. And until then, most child care centers plan to raise tuition rates. Adrien Wilkie is expecting to pay up to 10% more for child care this fall.

“Now we have two children in day care, and so calculating that for 2024, I think we will be spending about $32,000 to $34,000 on child care for one year,” Wilkie said.

Still, it makes more financial sense for her to keep working full-time than having a parent at home.

“I mean, what are we going to do? Like, we need the child care. So it’s just like, OK, that’s what we’re gonna do,” Wilkie said.

This is not an easy time for providers either. The preschool’s director Anna Mercer McLean knows paying tuition is a hardship.

“I just want families to know that we do not want them to bear the burden of this cost,” McLean said. “We want families just to be able to let our legislators and others know what the weight and burden of this is on them.”

Child care providers in North Carolina hope their state legislature will increase state funding to make up for lost federal funds. States like Minnesota and Massachusetts have already done that.

Early on, federal grants covered immediate pandemic related needs. But the grants that are ending now were designated for compensating teachers. McLean said, for her, there’s no going back on raises.

“I’m not taking away salaries. Never will, not gonna do it. I mean our teachers deserve every dollar they receive, and they need more,” McLean said.

McLean raised the base salary at her center to equal her county’s basic living wage. She said even so, she still struggles to hire enough teachers to meet the demand from families.

“We have a long waiting list, we just don’t have teachers to fill the classrooms,” McLean said.

She said the search for employees has become increasingly competitive. Early childhood teachers might make more working at Amazon or Costco.

McLean said if she can’t hire teachers to grow her center’s enrollment, she worries she’ll have to close after 32 years in business.