COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Ohio’s lack of affordable childcare isn’t just hurting families -- it’s costing the state’s economy nearly $5.5 billion in untapped taxes and employer earnings each year, according to the new report "Untapped Potential in Ohio." “You add all of that up and it ju st shows that not properly addressing the scarcities and the costs involved with childcare in this state is a really big and expensive problem,” said Rick Carfagna, senior vice president for government affairs at the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. The study is led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation in collaboration with the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and the nonprofit Groundwork Ohio. Carfagna said this is a difficult crisis to tackle because it’s caused by several issues. Ohio lawmakers debate whether to ban fluoride from public drinking water “First of all, it’s too scarce and when you can find it, it's too expensive," he said. "We just simply don’t have enough supply in the state either of center-based child care or in-home childcare." He added that there are not enough people entering the early childhood workforce. “It’s unfortunately a low-wage job and so it’s hard to entice people when you’re competing with other industries like retail,” Carfagna said. Lastly, he said there aren’t enough eligible families for publicly funded childcare. “We are ranked the lowest in the country when it comes to qualifying at your income levels for publicly funded childcare,” he said. To be eligible, families must be at or below 145% of the Federal Poverty Level.  “We have an entire demographic of Ohioans right now that are educated," Carfagna said. "They’re skilled. They’re hard-working. They’re everything you would want in a reliable employee and they’re not even looking for work because they’ve done the math. They’ve calculated that bringing in an additional paycheck into their household that goes right back out the door to pay for childcare doesn’t make economic sense for their family.” This report has been done in several other states as well. “Some states have it much worse than us," Carfagna said. "Some states, especially the surrounding states, have it better than us. But when I say better it’s not as horrible as us." According to these reports, Michigan is losing $2.9 billion each year in economic potential, Indiana is seeing a $4.2 billion hit annually and Pennsylvania misses out on $3.4 billion. “They also have greater investments in the state in some of the childcare offerings," Carfagna said. "They have higher thresholds to qualify for publicly funded childcare and that’s a really key measure that we hope Ohio will take a really strong look at." Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has proposed several measures in the state budget that could help, including increasing the maximum income for families to qualify for publicly funded childcare, a child tax credit and a tax hike on cigarettes to pay for that credit. “We want our leaders to know that workforce is top of mind throughout the entire business community and the key to the workforce is making sure that people can return to work and have affordable and accessible childcare,” Carfagna said. Ohio House members adopted their version of the budget recently and those initiatives were eliminated. The budget remains in debate stages but must pass by the end of June. ...read more read less