Cuts to Child Care Subsidy Thwart More Job Seekers

This article was just printed in the New York Times;

TUCSON — Able-bodied, outgoing and accustomed to working, Alexandria Wallace wants to earn a paycheck. But that requires someone to look after her 3-year-old daughter, and Ms. Wallace, a 22-year-old single mother, cannot afford child care.

Last month, she lost her job as a hair stylist after her improvised network of baby sitters frequently failed her, forcing her to miss shifts. She qualifies for a state-run subsidized child care program. But like many other states, Arizona has slashed that program over the last year, relegating Ms. Wallace’s daughter, Alaya, to a waiting list of nearly 11,000 eligible children.

Now, in this moment of painful budget cuts, with Arizona and more than a dozen other states placing children eligible for subsidized child care on waiting lists, only two kinds of families are reliably securing aid: those under the supervision of child protective services — which looks after abuse and neglect cases — and those receiving cash assistance.

Ms. Wallace abhors the thought of going on cash assistance, a station she associates with lazy people who con the system. Yet this has become the only practical route toward child care.

So, on a recent afternoon, she waited in a crush of beleaguered people to submit the necessary paperwork. Her effort to avoid welfare through work has brought her to welfare’s door.

“It doesn’t make sense to me,” she says. “I fall back to — I can’t say ‘being a lowlife’ — but being like the typical person living off the government. That’s not what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to use this as a backbone, so I can develop my own backbone.”

As the American social safety net absorbs its greatest challenge since the Great Depression, state budget cuts are weakening crucial components. Subsidized child care — financed by federal and state governments — is a conspicuous example.

Despite a substantial increase in federal support for subsidized child care, which has enabled some states to stave off cuts, others have trimmed support, and most have failed to keep pace with rising demand, according to poverty experts and federal officials.

That has left swelling numbers of low-income families struggling to reconcile the demands of work and parenting, just as they confront one of the toughest job markets in decades.

The cuts to subsidized child care challenge the central tenet of the welfare overhaul adopted in 1996, which imposed a five-year lifetime limit on cash assistance. Under the change, low-income parents were forced to give up welfare checks and instead seek paychecks, while being promised support — not least, subsidized child care — that would enable them to work.

Where Will the Children Go? Child Care Cuts Leave Families with Few Options

Posted: 06 Jul 2010 07:35 AM PDT

by Stephanie Robinson, Intern,

National Women’s Law Center

Many parents across the country are unable to work because they can’t afford child care for their children, and help with child care costs is likely to become even harder to get. At least 12 states have made cuts to their child care programs, even with the availability of additional federal child care funding through the economic recovery package. As the economic recovery funds are used up, some of these states will make additional cuts, and additional states will start making cuts, leaving many more low-income families without the child care assistance they need.

Arkansas used the economic recovery funding to provide child care assistance to over 12,000 additional children and as a result reduced its waiting list for assistance. However, 5,000 children remain on the waiting list, and that list is expected to double now that the state’s economic recovery funds for child care have run out. As a result, some families with very tight budgets will be forced to come up with a way to pay for child care on their own. Some families will have no choice but to use lower-cost child care that may not offer the early learning environment their children need to get a strong start. Some parents will lose their jobs when unreliable child care arrangements fall through or when they cannot find affordable child care at all. This could ultimately lead some parents to turn to welfare in order to support their families, despite their desire to work.

Meanwhile, in Arizona, 13,000 children have been placed on the state’s waiting list for child care assistance since February 2009, and the list keeps growing. The Arizona Child Care Association and Early Care and Education Consortium recently released a video showing what these cuts mean for Arizona families relying on child care and child care providers trying to stay in business. Child care centers and classrooms previously filled with children are now closed and empty because of a lack of funding to help families pay for child care. The average annual cost of center care in Arizona is $6,626 for a four-year-old and $8,505 for a one-year-old. Few low-income families can afford these costs without some sort of financial help.

Unfortunately, what is happening in Arizona and Arkansas is not unique. With many states cutting child care and other funding in order to close budget gaps, low-income families and child care programs across the country are struggling. And the number of families without child care assistance and the number of child care programs forced to shut their doors are likely to increase unless additional federal child care funding is provided.

National News

National Women’s Law Center

 

The child care needs of American women and their families have increased dramatically as women with children have entered the paid workforce in unprecedented numbers. Yet high-quality child care is too often unaffordable or simply not available. Women and their families thus have a tremendous stake in public policies that will help make high-quality child care available and affordable to those who need it. That is why the National Women’s Law Center is working to improve the quality, affordability, and accessibility of child care, with a special emphasis on ways to expand public and private financing of the changes needed to achieve these goals.

Click here to visit the National Women’s Law Center website.