Only 8% of childcare centers open before 7am or after 6pm, stranding shift workers

43% of US children have at least one parent working nonstandard hours -- nights, weekends, or rotating shifts -- yet only 8% of childcare centers offer care outside the 7am-6pm window. Nurses, warehouse workers, restaurant staff, and first responders are forced into expensive ad-hoc arrangements: overnight nannies at $20-30/hour, unlicensed informal care, or quitting their jobs entirely. Childcare subsidies often cannot be applied to nonstandard-hour care because the approved provider network overwhelmingly operates standard hours. This persists because operating outside 9-to-5 requires paying staff premium overnight wages, which makes the already-thin economics of childcare completely unworkable without dedicated funding that does not exist.