A Democratic Senate investigation has found that the nation's two largest for-profit child care companies showed a disparity in complaints and high-risk violations compared with other providers, with private-equity-funded major child care chains in three states posting higher rates of both complaints and high-risk violations than other centers, according to the findings.
The investigation, reported by The Washington Post, centers on the growing footprint of private equity in an industry that millions of American families depend on daily. The findings arrive as scrutiny of the sector's biggest players continues to build in Washington, with Sen. Jeff Merkley having separately sought detailed records from two of the companies at the heart of the debate.
Merkley sent letters to KinderCare Learning Companies, Learning Care Group, and their private-equity owners requesting financial records and information on their ownership structure, cost and pricing trends, safety protocols and employment practices, according to Yahoo News. Merkley has said he wants to understand whether a broader pattern of private equity involvement is continuing to take hold in child care and what that means for children and families. “I hope to better understand if that trend is continuing in the child care sector,” he said, per the outlet.
The Scale of the Two Biggest Players
The size of these companies underscores why their practices draw attention. KinderCare reported $2.7 billion in revenue in 2025, the same report notes. Learning Care Group, meanwhile, served more than 165,000 children across its centers and reported $1.5 billion in revenue in 2023, according to figures Merkley cited in his request for records.
Those numbers reflect a consolidation trend that predates this investigation. A 2024 Congressional Research Service report found that private equity had invested in eight of the nation's 10 largest for-profit child care organizations, the outlet reported. That same report noted a dual-edged dynamic: private equity involvement could expand availability and competition in child care markets, but profit maximization could also lead to higher child care costs and lower quality of care.
Families Already Feeling the Squeeze
The investigation's findings land against a backdrop of families already struggling with affordability. One in five families reported cutting back on child care coverage or resorting to “inadequate” child care, per the same account relayed by the outlet. Separately, seven in 10 people said raising children is too expensive, according to findings from the American Family Survey cited in the report.
Beyond the specific companies named in the investigation, federal oversight data paint a broader picture of compliance challenges across the child care industry generally. In unannounced site visits across nine states and one territory, the HHS Office of Inspector General found that 96 percent of inspected providers — 218 out of 227 — had at least one instance of potentially hazardous conditions or non-compliance with state health and safety requirements. That data does not single out any particular company and applies to the industry at large.
A separate 2024 study from the Administration for Children and Families examined the association between licensing violations and quality ratings in three states, finding that higher-rated centers tended to have fewer violations in two of the three states and that a similar pattern held for high-risk violations.
