Child Care Funding Research Articles

The New World of Welfare

Congress must reauthorize the sweeping 1996 welfare reform legislation by October 1, 2002. A number of issues that were prominent in the 1995-96 battle over welfare reform are likely to resurface in the debate over reauthorization. Among those issues are the five-year time limit, provisions to reduce out-of-wedlock births, the adequacy of child care funding, problems with Medicaid and food stamp receipt by working families, and work requirements. Funding levels are also certain to be controversial. Fiscal conservatives will try to lower grant spending levels, while states will seek to maintain them and gain additional discretion in the use of funds. Finally, a movement to encourage states to promote marriage among low-income families is already taking shape. The need for reauthorization presents an opportunity to assess what welfare reform has accomplished and what remains to be done. The New World of Welfare is an attempt to frame the policy debate for reauthorization, and to inform the policy discussion among the states and at the federal level, especially by drawing lessons from research on the effects of welfare reform. In the book, a diverse set of welfare experts uliberal and conservative, academic and nonacademic uengage in rigorous debate on topics ranging from work experience programs, to job availability, to child well-being, to family formation. In order to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of research on welfare reform, the contributors cover subjects including work and wages, effects of reform on family income and poverty, the politics of conservative welfare reform, sanctions and time limits, financial work incentives for low-wage earners, the use of medicaid and food stamps, welfare-to-work, child support, child care, and welfare reform and immigration. Preparation of the volume was supported by funds from the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Contributors include Thomas L. Gais, Richard P. Nathan, and Irene Lurie (Rockefeller Inistitute, SUNY-Albany), Thomas Kaplan (University of Wisconsin), Lucie Schmidt (University of Michigan), Charles Murray (American Enterprise Institute), Hugh Heclo (George Mason University), Lawrence M. Mead (NYU), ), Julie Strawn, Mark Greenberg, and Steve Savner (Center for Law and Social Policy), Ladonna Pavetti (Mathematica Policy Research), Dan Bloom (Manpower Demonstration Research Corp.), Charles Michalopoulos and Gordon Berlin (Manpower Demonstraton Research Corporation), Jason A. Turner (Commissioner of Welfare, State of New York), Thomas Main (Baruch College of the City University of New York), Sheila Zedlewski and Pamela Loprest (Urban Institute), Robert Greenstein and Jocelyn Guyer (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities), George Borjas (Harvard University), Greg Duncan and Lindsay Chase-Landsdale (Northwestern University), Wade F. Horn (National Fatherhood Initiative), Isabel V. Sawhill (Brookings Institution, Irwin Garfinkel (Columbia University), Douglas Besharov and Nazanin Samari (American Enterprise Institute), Lynn A. Karoly, Jacob A. Klerman, and Jeannette A. Rogowski (RAND Corp.).

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's off to Tests We Go

THAT VARIATION on a cheery refrain could be the pint-sized equivalent of the pep rallies some schools hold on the eve of state test day. Go get those scores, kids! Attack those bubble sheets! Remember the tricks we told you! The Bush Administration will begin testing all students in Head Start programs next September, not just to find out who needs to learn how to hold a book right side up but to decide whether a Head Start center should continue to be funded. (The director denies this, while also criticizing the failure of Head Start to properly prepare youngsters for reading readiness.) Each year the pre- and posttests will provide data for making such decisions. Certainly, a problem exists. When youngsters enter kindergarten, the gap in cognitive skills is already evident between those from low-income homes and those from middle- and higher-income homes, according to the first results of a longitudinal study of young children that makes use of data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). New kindergartners also come with different experiences, including good and poor Head Start programs, good and poor home care, and good and poor child-care facilities. President Bush's Good Start, Grow Smart initiative, which includes the Head Start testing, is aimed at bringing standards to this disparate field. In a few months, all states must have early learning guidelines aligned to their K-12 standards. Early grants for Reading First are taking the recently promoted national curriculum in reading (let's be frank about the matter) to lower levels of schooling, and there is some speculation that the early learning guidelines developed by the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (which is responsible for federal child care and Head Start) will push the reading agenda widely into preschool experiences. Despite the understandable goal of ensuring that all children are ready to learn, this top-down strategy is troubling. Like the test-based accountability in No Child Left Behind, the context is missing. A very complex environment that is as much about values as about specific skills is being reduced to a test, to a common curriculum. And that reduction is minimizing other factors that ought to be part of the conversation, especially the conversation about young children. Why is no one concerned that the Bush Administration plans to cut Head Start and child-care funding, even though fewer than half of eligible children currently have access to Head Start programs? Would that federal officials were as concerned about the background of Head Start teachers as they are about the performance of the children. Most Head Start teachers have only a high school diploma and earn about half the salary of a kindergarten teacher. The low pay and high turnover rates in child-care programs for the poor exacerbate the unevenness of the playing field and so compound the differences in support received by children in low- and higher-income families. Why is so little attention being paid to differences in income as the dominant reason why there are differences in reading readiness? The study of NCES data, being conducted by Valerie Lee and David Burkam of the University of Michigan, found that race and ethnicity, family makeup, and home expectations for education account for far less variation in the readiness scores of kindergartners than does socioeconomic status. Another interesting statistic -- this one from a General Accounting Office report -- shows that three-fourths of the parents of Head Start children have high school diplomas, which should change one's image of this parent group somewhat. If their children own fewer books, take fewer trips to museums, and have fewer computers at home -- as the data clearly show -- it may not be because the parents are uneducated but because they must spend all their resources on survival. …

Ideas and the Welfare State

This article examines the legacy of American and Canadian welfare state development to explain surprisingly comparable levels of child care provision. It highlights the ironies of policy history while demonstrating the importance of ideas as independent causal factors in the development of public policies and the effect of their institutionalization on future policy development. Maternalist, nativist, and eugencist imperatives led U.S. governments to intrude in areas normally considered part of the private sphere and led to the adoption of policies to respond to a perceived decline primarily of the White population. These policies provided a normative and institutional basis for future government involvement in child care funding and programs, even after the conditions that led to the original policies changed. In Canada, the lack of large-scale entrenchment of similar ideas constrained an otherwise more interventionist government and made it more difficult for child care policies to find governmental and societal acceptance.

Welfare Reform under PRWORA: Aid to Children with Working Families?

We assess some of the major themes and impacts of welfare reform that have emerged for states and families during the three years since the passage of the 1996 welfare reform bill, PRWORA. The major themes for states include: (1) a work-first approach to cash assistance, (2) large increases in federal funding for child care, (3) increasing diversity in state and local cash assistance and child-care programs, (4) the beginning stages of the integration of diverse child-care programs, and (5) the severing of the link between child-care assistance and cash assistance in some states. Changes for families include (1) increases in financial incentives to work; (2) mandatory work-related activity requirements, sanctions if requirements are not met, and time limits on cash-assistance receipt; (3) increased availability of child-care subsides; and (4) a different environment and culture at welfare offices--stressing work and personal responsibility. Assessment of impacts on state and local government and low-income families with children are at an early stage. The clearest impact is the marked decline in the number of individuals receiving cash assistance and the equally marked increase in the number of children being cared for in nonfamilial settings. A markedly increased proportion of cash-assistance recipients are working or in other approved activities. Increased child-care subsidies appear to have increased the earnings of both current and former welfare recipients and other low-income families. Preliminary results suggest that work requirements and time limits have succeeded in moving low-income women with children into jobs, but have decreased the wages they are able to obtain compared to women who are not subject to time limits.

Caring for Our Youngest: Public Attitudes in the United States

Families make choices about employment and care for their children in a context that is shaped by public policies and colored by public opinion. Debates over whether the government should increase funding for child care or do more to help parents stay home with their children reflect tensions among strongly held ideas about family life, work, and the role of government. This article summarizes the results of public opinion polls that probe attitudes about parent and government roles and responsibilities with respect to children's care. The polling findings yield three main lessons: The American public believes that parents should be the primary influence in their children's lives and that it is best if mothers can be home to care for the very young. The public also values family self-sufficiency and understands that low-income families may need child care assistance to balance child rearing and employment responsibilities. However, skepticism about the appropriateness of government involvement in family life limits public support for proposals that the government act directly to provide or improve child care. From these lessons, the author draws several conclusions for policymakers: Policies focused on caregiving should respect the rights of parents to raise their children by ensuring that an array of options is available. Public programs should help families who are struggling economically to balance their obligations to work and family. Rather than directly providing child care services, government should fund community-based child care programs, and provide flexible assistance to help families secure the services they need and want.

Changing Policies, Changing Impacts: Employment and Earnings of Child‐Care Subsidy Recipients in the Era of Welfare Reform

We examine the impact of increased child‐care funding on the employment and earnings of 4,399 current and former welfare families in Miami‐Dade County. We find that the dramatic increase in funding for child care during the early stages of welfare reform significantly increased the likelihood of employment for these welfare clients, even those with substantial barriers to employment. Our results also indicate that very low co‐payment rates may have no significant effect on earnings, but higher rates can lead to a significant decline in the earnings of those making the transition from welfare to work.

Welfare Reform under PRWORA: Aid to Children with Working Families?

We assess some of the major themes and impacts of welfare reform that have emerged for states and families during the three years since the passage of the 1996 welfare reform bill, PRWORA. The major themes for states include: (1) a work-first approach to cash assistance, (2) large increases in federal funding for child care, (3) increasing diversity in state and local cash assistance and child-care programs, (4) the beginning stages of the integration of diverse child-care programs, and (5) the severing of the link between child-care assistance and cash assistance in some states. Changes for families include (1) increases in financial incentives to work; (2) mandatory work-related activity requirements, sanctions if requirements are not met, and time limits on cash-assistance receipt; (3) increased availability of child-care subsides; and (4) a different environment and culture at welfare offices--stressing work and personal responsibility. Assessment of impacts on state and local government and low-income families with children are at an early stage. The clearest impact is the marked decline in the number of individuals receiving cash assistance and the equally marked increase in the number of children being cared for in nonfamilial settings. A markedly increased proportion of cash-assistance recipients are working or in other approved activities. Increased child-care subsidies appear to have increased the earnings of both current and former welfare recipients and other low-income families. Preliminary results suggest that work requirements and time limits have succeeded in moving low-income women with children into jobs, but have decreased the wages they are able to obtain compared to women who are not subject to time limits.

No sympathy for student nurses' complaints

The letters page of the November 24 issue is full of complaints from student nurses about lack of childcare, lack of childcare funding and unsociable hours.

Assessing child care need under welfare reform

Abstract Suggestions for improvements to this research by Sherrill Friedman, Paula Brush and Subhash Sonnad are gratefully acknowledged. With the advent of welfare reform, recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) are now required to enter the workforce. This workforce entry brings the need for child care. Two problems concerning child care emerge: poor women participating in the workforce at entry level jobs often require child care during hours when care is not readily available (Miranne & Young, 1998); and welfare reform s work requirement will necessitate a predicted ten percent increase in child care services (Maynard, 1989), while only a four percent increase in funding for child care is being mandated by the federal government (Blank, 1997). This essay explores welfare reform and its effect on child care availability by demonstrating its impact at a local level.

Counterpoint: Child Care Reform and Labour Market Participation by Women

The public hearings conducted by the Senate Inquiry into Child Care Funding earlier this year provided a window onto the concerns of child care service providers and users. As both a participant and an observer at the Sydney hearings I listened to detailed reports of the crisis facing this sector. The reports came from a range of sources: parents, staff, service providers, local councils, early childhood professionals, sponsoring agencies, and peak bodies. Overwhelmingly they presented a consistent and depressing picture: many middle- and low-income Australian families can no longer afford child care; parents are being compelled to reduce the hours their children attend child care or withdraw them from formal care altogether (at the same time reducing their own commitment to paid work); children are increasingly subjected to a patchwork of arrangements involving family care, informal care, and limited formal provision; and some parents, as a last resort, have withdrawn from paid employment.

A Brief History of Federal Financing for Child Care in the United States

Over the past 60 years, the federal government has provided funding for child care and early education programs in fits and starts. Funding has fluctuated in amount and purpose, with the result that today's child care financing system is a confused collection of funding streams with no uniform goals, standards, or administrative structure. This article traces the history of federal funding for child care and early education programs in the United States and examines how the values of American society have shaped the federal funding of child care and early education services.

The Financing of Child Care: Current and Emerging Trends

Early care and education services in the United States are financed by a complex mix of public and private funds totaling about $40 billion annually. In this article, the authors describe the principal sources of funding for child care and conclude that parents pay the primary share, followed by funds from the federal government and those state expenditures that are required to match federal funding. The authors detail a fragmented and underfunded system of finance that is the product of unresolved conflicts between child care policy and early education policy, and between tax policy and expenditure policy. The policy conflicts and insufficient resources create fragmentation in service delivery and inequities in allocation of subsidies.

The Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training Program and Child Care: Initial State Developments

In enacting the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training program (JOBS), Congress recognized that the participation of many mothers with young children would depend on child care. In this article, we consider how 10 states initially responded to the child-care provisions of the legislation. Although many state administrators perceived both the supply and funding of child care as adequate at the time of the study, most viewed child care as a quasi entitlement, available as long as state funding allowed. Not surprisingly, limited state funding for child care has already resulted in restricted access to the JOBS program and to child-care support for other low-income, nonAid to Families with Dependent Children families.