Building Blocks of a New Economy
Fighting for Early Childhood Education in St. Louis
February 12, 2026
As the U.S. economy faces emerging new challenges – from pandemics and trade shocks, to the job-killing effects of Artificial Intelligence, automation, and robotics – the conditions long faced by rustbelt communities may be in the process of being generalized to the national economy, giving the economic strategies pioneered there a wider potential application. In his second blog, TDC Community Wealth Building Fellow Abimael Chavez-Hernandez, in residence with WEPOWER in St. Louis, reflects on the merits of investing in early childhood education as part of the efforts to reverse population decline.
As in other regions of the country that have experienced significant deindustrialization, the composition of St Louis’ economy has shifted from a predominantly manufacturing base, to one based in services. Healthcare and education are the largest sectors of the economy in St Louis today. Since its population peaked in the 1950s, local and regional policy has resulted in stagnant population growth, with many families deciding to leave the region altogether. As local experts have noted, the region lacks policies that welcome families in housing, childcare, and transportation.
Groups like WEPOWER seek to reverse these trends by building the region’s care economy, specifically through childcare policy. Building on previous work in this realm, WEPOWER is mobilizing residents in 2026 to win resources that recognize the importance of funding this sector as it has been demonstrated in other parts of the nation to stabilize local economies.
Rather than be a passive observer of economic trends in the region, WEPOWER are helping shape the local economy to serve local residents rather than invest in incentives for economic development proposals with uncertain returns.
The work of building this local model for a robustly supported care economy can help guide other areas of economic development and set the region on a course for inclusive and reparative growth.
WEPOWER’s ECE Playbook
WEPOWER’s first playbook, released in 2020, focused on early childhood education (ECE), coincided with the passing of Measure R, which established St Louis CIty’s first public funding source for early childhood education. The 2020 ECE playbook, as is the case with the later New STL Economy playbook, was the product of deep engagement with community members who wished to see a shift in power towards Black and Brown residents and away from extractive policies. Importantly, the Playbook and WEPOWER’s role in the passage of Measure R came just two years after the founding of the organization and reflected on the work of organizers to create a racially just economy in the wake of uprisings in the region after the murder of Michael Brown in 2014.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear that care providers were essential to the local recovery. Although federal efforts (Build Back Better, or BBB) to recognize the importance of the care economy to a resilient and thriving economy never materialized, passage of Measure R began the development of a local model for the care economy. As New York City and New Mexico are showing today, these investments respond to long neglected needs that can help stabilize local economies for the long term and close wealth gaps.
Historical Bases and Structural Shifts
St Louis has experienced some of the worst population decline of any region in the nation. By some estimates, the metropolitan region risks falling out of the top 25 largest areas by the end of the decade due to stagnant population growth. This decline is due to a number of factors such as insufficient housing - especially stock which is accommodating to families -, the lack of diverse transportation options and of affordable child care. As demographer Ness Sandoval has shown, the region’s failure to accommodate families is leading to a region that is rapidly aging with many neighborhoods now home to more seniors than youth. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated trends and the need to act to stem, and reverse them has only become more urgent.
This demographic crisis is rooted in the region’s history of racist urban development policies and deindustrialization. At the height of its population in the 1950s, St Louis was the 8th largest city in the nation and was home to a large manufacturing base. Today, the largest employers in the region are healthcare and educational institutions.
In recent years, biomedical and advanced manufacturing industries have begun to develop locally, but the region’s economy is less diverse than it used to be. This has resulted in a bifurcated labor market, with growth in high-income and low-income jobs, but a decrease in middle-income employment.
Post-war suburbanization in the region was facilitated by federal financing of homes in newly incorporated communities and the demolition of Black neighborhoods for interstate highway development. Through incorporation many communities were able to adopt exclusionary housing policies which ensured racial homogeneity for generations and deprived St Louis City of tax revenue to make needed investments to adapt to a shifting economy. Although decades later some of these communities would consolidate and total a lower number, the lack of regionalized revenue sharing led to the area having one of the most fragmented tax bases in the nation. In search of revenue, many of these communities pursued fines and fees policies that disproportionately harassed Black residents to cover local finances.
Powerbuilding With the Care Economy Today
WEPOWER is disrupting long-standing patterns of disinvestment in Black and Brown communities in the region by building on its previous childcare work. They are, alongside providers, parents and other coalition members, helping lead the Best Start For Kids STL (BS4K) campaign to fortify local resources for early childhood education. This campaign aims to place a measure on the St Louis city ballot in November of 2026 to levy a sales tax which will generate revenues to provide subsidies for child care on a sliding scale. This campaign is critical to building the care economy as it would provide subsidies to nearly all parents and help create a city that is more welcoming to families.
Childcare is considered one of the best public investments as it saves government money ($7 to $10 in associated healthcare, education, prison, and social services costs) and close opportunity gaps in the long term.
The region’s significant racialized wealth and income gaps will not be closed by early childhood education investments alone but such investments are essential to closing opportunity gaps that precede racialized inequality.
In 2024, of 100 metropolitan areas in the United States, the opportunity gap between white and Black children in the St Louis area was one of the largest in the nation.
WEPOWER’s efforts to strengthen local resourcing of ECE programs will ensure that these gaps close over time and prove the power of a robust care economy to reverse long-term population decline and racialized income dynamics.