Carving out a future in the Granite State can feel like approaching the summit of Mount Washington only to discover it’s a false peak and you must climb further. Surging housing and childcare costs have created a difficult trek for young people planning their futures— and a retention problem for employers.
That sense of scarcity, and a commitment to finding solutions, was a focus of Stay Work Play NH’s inaugural NH Nexus Summit held Aug. 10 in Concord. More than 80 young professionals, business leaders and policymakers attended. Stay Work Play NH is a nonprofit dedicated to convincing young people to live and work in the Granite State.
Corinne Breton, Stay Work Play’s executive director, set the stage succinctly. “If you don’t think you can meet your dreams in New Hampshire, you will move,” she said. “People don’t always think childcare is a big retention issue and one thing that comes up when I address media and policy people is a hesitancy to believe the wait lists for childcare are as long as they are, that the costs are as high as they are.”
According to a June report by the NH Fiscal Policy Institute, childcare prices continue to rise in 2025 while the number of providers declined. The average annual price of center-based care for an infant and a four-year-old reached about $30,000, up from approximately $22,500 in 2017. During the same period, licensed childcare providers statewide declined by 120 programs, or 14%.
NH Nexus featured panel discussions as well as remarks by Tom Raffio, president of Northeast Delta Dental, a nonprofit dental insurance provider based in Concord that presented the event with support from the Couch Family Foundation.
Raffio recalled serving on the state Board of Education from 2007 to 2017, when reducing high school dropout rates was a priority. “Governor Lynch tasked us with how to do that, and it came down to how a young person was treated from zero to 4 years of age,” he said, citing research showing early childhood investments produce better outcomes and economic returns. “As a business person this is intuitive … parents who are distracted because they don’t have early learning care [for their children] are not in a position to be good employees.”
During a panel discussion titled “Living the Reality: Young Families Navigating Childcare in New Hampshire,” Katie Geery, Stay Work Play’s board co-chair, described the financial pressures facing young families. “If you want to enjoy the amenities New Hampshire has,” she said, “but you’re only left with 10 to 15 percent of your income after paying for necessities, that can be very difficult.”
Breton pushed back against the idea that younger generations are simply unwilling to work or have families. “If you’re a couple and have a child in day care, you need two incomes,” she said. “Add in housing costs and it’s a real non-starter for a lot of families.”
Childcare, Breton continued, is not only a parental issue but a defining factor in NH's future. “We are losing talent. We’re losing access to talent because our infrastructure isn’t up to par with the needs,” she said.
Raffio said helping employees access and afford childcare is also about doing the right thing. “[Northeast Delta Dental] is blessed to have resources, and I think corporations should give back as much as they can,” he said. “People want to do business with companies that are good to people.”
Breton said New Hampshire needs more ambitious solutions. “We can’t afford to accept small, incremental change as the end-all, be-all to addressing the problem,” she said. “You’re either paying the bill now and supporting the next generation, or you’re going to be paying it on the back end.”
NH Nexus is intended to become Stay Work Play's signature annual forum, exploring a different issue each year affecting New Hampshire's ability to attract, retain and support young people.
“Young people are often invited into conversations after strategies have already been established,” Breton said. “NH Nexus starts from a different premise: that the people making decisions about where to live, whether to start families, how to balance careers, and what they want New Hampshire to become deserve to help shape the conversation earlier.”