Louisiana employers are absorbing a $1.3 billion annual hit. Not from regulation. Not from litigation. From a workforce that can’t show up. The reason is straightforward: Parents can’t work when they have nowhere safe to take their children.

This isn’t a family problem. It’s a business problem. And right now, it’s our problem. Gov. Jeff Landry opened this legislative session with a clear charge: Strengthen Louisiana’s economy, remove barriers to work and build a workforce ready to meet industry’s demands.

Those are the right goals. But they cannot be achieved while we ignore the single largest barrier keeping Louisiana workers on the sideline. Louisiana already ranks near the bottom nationally in workforce participation at 58%. Business leaders across the state will tell you why: childcare. When the system breaks down, workers don’t show up. When workers don’t show up, employers absorb the cost. When employers absorb the cost, Louisiana loses. Right now, over 116,000 children under the age of 4 lack access to quality early education programs.

Louisiana is not starting from scratch. More than two decades ago, this state led the entire South with the creation of LA-4, delivering quality pre-K to over 80% of at-risk 4-year-olds before most states had even entered the conversation. That was a decision to compete. The creation of the Early Childhood Education Fund signaled that Louisiana wasn’t done — that we understood the next and harder frontier was infants and toddlers, the most expensive and most undersupplied segment of the entire pipeline. That is Louisiana’s distinct advantage. And it is what this session must protect.

The data is not in dispute. The cost of inaction is not theoretical. The only question is whether Louisiana leads or follows.

JOHN ENGQUIST