This document summarizes the key role that child care assistance programs play in helping low-income parents find and maintain employment. It outlines how federal and state funding for these programs grew substantially after welfare reform in 1996, allowing more families to receive assistance. However, funding has declined since 2001 due to budget shortfalls, forcing many states to cut eligibility and create waiting lists. As a result, many low-income working families are struggling without adequate child care support.
This chart book is chock full of infographics, data points, and maps that break down how Georgia's Medicaid program works, what the coverage gap is, and provides recommendations to close that gap.
The 2012 Report Card indicated it is becoming difficult for the Prime Minister to stick to his commitment of creating a society which truly supports family life. The report card highlights that the condition of the economy continues to make life intensely difficult for millions of UK families, who currently face a triple squeeze of tax and benefit changes, high childcare costs and high costs of living.
Ghost wrote an op-ed for two child care activists -- one an early childhood educator and mom in New Mexico; the other a mom advocate in Michigan -- to share their stories and connect the issue to the upcoming 2020 election.
Although symptoms can vary widely, the first problem many people notice is forgetfulness severe enough to affect their ability to function at home or at work or to enjoy lifelong hobbies.
This chart book is chock full of infographics, data points, and maps that break down how Georgia's Medicaid program works, what the coverage gap is, and provides recommendations to close that gap.
The 2012 Report Card indicated it is becoming difficult for the Prime Minister to stick to his commitment of creating a society which truly supports family life. The report card highlights that the condition of the economy continues to make life intensely difficult for millions of UK families, who currently face a triple squeeze of tax and benefit changes, high childcare costs and high costs of living.
Ghost wrote an op-ed for two child care activists -- one an early childhood educator and mom in New Mexico; the other a mom advocate in Michigan -- to share their stories and connect the issue to the upcoming 2020 election.
Although symptoms can vary widely, the first problem many people notice is forgetfulness severe enough to affect their ability to function at home or at work or to enjoy lifelong hobbies.
TEDX Toulon slides (20 June 2014) about emotions at work.
From Airbus to SAP, in 15 years of coaching and training executives in international settings, Stéphanie has been constantly confronted with emotions management issues. Whether in crisis management or in everyday work life, emotions are a real issue and we learn to suppress them, the larger the organisation gets or the more pressured the markets become. This strategy is often reinforced by the rapid turnover of management and the pressure of financial metrics. Its only weakness is: it is not efficient.
eXo Digital Agency is a Digital Media Agency based in Jakarta. Serving local and international brands such as: L.A. Lights Streetball, Prasetiya Mulya Business School, Sentralive, Anker Beer, Electronic Arts, SCEE, Outspark and others with improving their BRAND image online.
SEO has changed a lot over the last two decades. We all know about Google Panda & Penguin, but did you know there was a time when search engine results were returned by humans? Crazy right? We take a trip down memory lane to chart some of the biggest events in SEO that have helped shape the industry today.
What 33 Successful Entrepreneurs Learned From FailureReferralCandy
Entrepreneurs encounter failure often. Successful entrepreneurs overcome failure and emerge wiser. We've taken 33 lessons about failure from Brian Honigman's article "33 Entrepreneurs Share Their Biggest Lessons Learned from Failure", illustrated them with statistics and a little story about entrepreneurship... in space!
How People Really Hold and Touch (their Phones)Steven Hoober
For the newest version of this presentation, always go to: 4ourth.com/tppt
For the latest video version, see: 4ourth.com/tvid
Presented at ConveyUX in Seattle, 7 Feb 2014
For the newest version of this presentation, always go to: 4ourth.com/tppt
For the latest video version, see: 4ourth.com/tvid
We are finally starting to think about how touchscreen devices really work, and design proper sized targets, think about touch as different from mouse selection, and to create common gesture libraries.
But despite this we still forget the user. Fingers and thumbs take up space, and cover the screen. Corners of screens have different accuracy than the center. It's time to re-evaluate what we think we know.
Steven reviews his ongoing research into how people actually interact with mobile devices, presents some new ideas on how we can design to avoid errors and take advantage of this new knowledge, and leaves you with 10 (relatively) simple steps to improve your touchscreen designs tomorrow.
An impactful approach to the Seven Deadly Sins you and your Brand should avoid on Social Media! From a humoristic approach to a modern-life analogy for Social Media and including everything in between, this deck is a compelling resource that will provide you with more than a few take-aways for your Brand!
You are dumb at the internet. You don't know what will go viral. We don't either. But we are slighter less dumber. So here's a bunch of stuff we learned that will help you be less dumb too.
California pays a lot for health care, not so much for keeping people healthyΔρ. Γιώργος K. Κασάπης
California spends a lot on health care to treat its residents, but relatively little to ensure they are healthy, according to a new report. In 2018, for every $1 that California spent on health care services, it spent just $0.68 on other aspects of health, including social and public health services. That “other” figure is down by nearly half — from $1.22 — since 2007. While California’s total health care spending has grown nearly 150% since that year, spending on other services grew by around 40%. The report’s authors say that the state could rein in some of its $119 billion budget by cutting back on wasted costs, including unnecessary medical services. But it could also invest in community aspects of care tied to improved health, including raising the minimum wage and investing in public health, education, and other social programs.
2 0 1 6 S t a t e Fa c t S h e e t sChild Care in America.docxvickeryr87
2 0 1 6 S t a t e Fa c t S h e e t s
Child Care in America:
Every week in the United States, child care providers care for nearly 11
million children younger than age 5 whose parents are working. On
average, these children spend 36 hours a week in child care, and one
quarter (nearly 3 million) are in multiple child care arrangements due to
the traditional and nontraditional working hours of their parents.1
Research has continually illustrated the importance of quality early
experiences in achieving good health, especially within the most
vulnerable populations. Families, child care providers and state and
federal policymakers share responsibility for the safety and wellbeing
of children while they are in child care settings. Basic state
requirements and oversight help lay the foundation necessary to
protect children and promote their healthy development while in child
care.
The Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) program
serves approximately 1.45 million children annually in communities
across the country. CCDBG is the primary federal grant program that
provides child care assistance for families and funds child care quality
initiatives. Funds are administered to states in formula block grants,
and states use the grants to subsidize child care for low-income
working families.
In November 2014, President Barack Obama signed S.1086, the Child
Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2014 into law. The new law
includes several measures focused on quality, including requiring
states to:
Promote quality child care by increasing activities to improve
the care, enhancing states’ ability to train providers and develop
safer and more effective child care services.
Strengthen health and safety requirements in child care
programs and providers.
Improve access to child care by expanding eligibility for
participating families and helping families connect with quality
programs that meet their needs by enhancing consumer
education, providing greater options for quality child care and
working to ensure continuity of care, essential for both the well-
being and stability of a child.2
With the new federal child care measures set to take effect, states are
rapidly building, evaluating, and changing their early care and
education quality focused systems (Quality Rating and Improvement
System (QRIS), professional development, licensing and standards).
Implementation of the new regulations must align with these efforts for
sustainability and maximum impact.
Over the past several years, Child Care Aware® of America has
surveyed and conducted focus groups with parents of young children,
grandparents, national child advocacy organizations, and state and
local Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) agencies. Those
conversations underscored that child care is an essential building block
1 U.S.
• The public believes that welfare is anti-work and anti-family.
• Polls show that the public wants welfare reform in ways that don’t penalize children.
• Welfare recipients find the system demoralizing; most would prefer to work.
• Experts note that welfare has done little to stem the growth of poverty among children.
• Welfare benefits are insufficient to move a family above the poverty line.
Running Head CALWORKS FAMILY BENEFIT PROGRAM1CALWORKS FAMILY.docxhealdkathaleen
Running Head: CALWORKS FAMILY BENEFIT PROGRAM1
CALWORKS FAMILY BENEFIT PROGRAM 14
CalWORKs Family Benefit Program
Name
Institution
Date
Abstract
CalWORKs family benefits program refers to a public welfare scheme that offers financial help and services to families that meet the eligibility criteria and which have children in their homes. It is based in California state in the United States of America. The program caters to the entire population of the families within the state that meets the eligibility criteria for welfare. The primary population that is targeted by the program includes families that live under the federal poverty level while they have children in the homes. The main purpose of the program is to extend the assistance of different kinds to such families ranging from financial help, employment programs, housing needs, food, and medical services among others (Mojica, 2017).
The program is affected by different policies, some of which facilitate its activities while others hamper effective operations of the program. The bottom-line of the policies is program funding. The program is jointly funded by all government levels from the federal government to the state government of California as well as the county governments within California. The paper is mainly oriented towards studying the policies that guide CalWORKs. This includes its deficiencies and some policy suggestions that would further improve the efficiency of the program.
CalWORKs Family Benefit Program
Introduction
CalWORKs refers to a welfare program whose main purpose is providing financial help and facilities to needy families within California. The program runs in all counties within California whereby it is headed by county welfare departments at local levels. The help provided may be short-term or continual. Short term help occurs whereby the family in need requires no or fewer amounts of money, housing, food, utilities, clothes or healthcare services. A family that applies and qualifies for continuous help receives some amount of money every month such as house rent, food and other basic expenses (Pizzolato, Olson & Monje-Paulson, 2017).
There are requirements that the family applying for the assistance needs to attain for the to be eligible to receive the help. The most important of them is that the involved persons must be citizens of the United States of America, permanent resident, or legal noncitizen and precisely from the state of California. Additionally, they must fall under the low or very low-income earning category. They should be either unemployed, about to get unemployed or under-employed. The program also extends help to expectant persons, those with children below eighteen years of age and even those that are eighteen years old but are the heads of their families (Gutiérrez, 2016). This paper aims at describing the issues that affect policy formulation and implementation as far as the operations of the program are concerned.
Statement ...
Social Work Research Program EvaluationMajor federal legisl.docxsamuel699872
Social Work Research: Program Evaluation
Major federal legislation was enacted in 1996 related to welfare reform. Financial assistance programs at the national level for low-income families have been in place since the mid-1960s through the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, or welfare reform, created TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families). Major components of the new TANF program were to limit new recipients of cash aid to no more than 2 years of TANF assistance at a time and to receive no more than 5 years of combined TANF assistance with other service programs during their lifetimes. The goal was to make public assistance a temporary, rather than a long-term, program for families with children. Beyond these general rules, each of the 50 states was given substantial latitude to adopt requirements to fit their own objectives. The new law also allowed states that reduced their public assistance expenses to keep whatever support was already being provided by the federal government for use at their own discretion. This was seen as a way to encourage states to reduce welfare dependency.
In response, the state of California decided to call its new program CalWORKs, the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids program. CalWORKs is California’s application of the new TANF federal law. Like most of the other states, CalWORKs provided its 58 counties with a fair amount of discretion in how to implement the new provisions. Some counties chose to develop strong upfront “employment-first” rules that mandated recipients be employed as soon as possible. Others chose a response that included testing and assessment and the provision of education and training services.
One of the largest counties in the San Francisco Bay Area developed several options for CalWORKs recipients, including immediate job readiness (Job Club) help, remedial education for recipients lacking basic skills, and vocational training at local community colleges and adult education centers for those seeking higher level education and skills. Recipients could take up to 5 years to complete these activities and even longer in certain circumstances to maximize their chances of success. Recipients were predominantly single mothers. If recipients fully complied with the rules, they received a variety of financial incentives, while those who did not comply received sanctions that often resulted in reduced benefit levels. The county provided grants to a wide array of education, training, and service programs to work as partners in serving the needs of participants.
In 1996, the county’s CalWORKs program enrolled approximately 22,000 families in various forms of public assistance programs. Of these, approximately 10,000 elected to participate in one of the education and training programs, 9,000 elected to attend intensive job placement .
Generalizability is the extent to which research findings from.docxfathwaitewalter
Generalizability
is the extent to which research findings from your sample population can be applicable to a larger population. There are many best practices for ensuring generalizability. Two of those are making sure the sample is as much like the population as possible and making sure that the sample size is large enough to mitigate the chance of differences within the population. For this Discussion, read the case study titled "Social Work Research: Program Evaluation" and consider how the particular study results can be generalizable.
Post
your explanation of who the sample is. Also explain steps researchers took to ensure generalizability. Be sure to discuss how the study results could possibly be generalizable. Please use the resources to support your answer.
SOCIAL WORK RESEARCH: PROGRAM EVALUTATION
Social Work Research: Program Evaluation
Major federal legislation was enacted in 1996 related to welfare reform. Financial assistance programs at the national level for low-income families have been in place since the mid-1960s through the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, or welfare reform, created TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families). Major components of the new TANF program were to limit new recipients of cash aid to no more than 2 years of TANF assistance at a time and to receive no more than 5 years of combined TANF assistance with other service programs during their lifetimes. The goal was to make public assistance a temporary, rather than a long-term, program for families with children. Beyond these general rules, each of the 50 states was given substantial latitude to adopt requirements to fit their own objectives. The new law also allowed states that reduced their public assistance expenses to keep whatever support was already being provided by the federal government for use at their own discretion. This was seen as a way to encourage states to reduce welfare dependency.
In response, the state of California decided to call its new program CalWORKs, the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids program. CalWORKs is California’s application of the new TANF federal law. Like most of the other states, CalWORKs provided its 58 counties with a fair amount of discretion in how to implement the new provisions. Some counties chose to develop strong upfront “employment-first” rules that mandated recipients be employed as soon as possible. Others chose a response that included testing and assessment and the provision of education and training services.
One of the largest counties in the San Francisco Bay Area developed several options for CalWORKs recipients, including immediate job readiness (Job Club) help, remedial education for recipients lacking basic skills, and vocational training at local community colleges and adult education centers for those seeking higher level education and skills. Recipients could ...
What's the Problem? Policy Analysis of 1996 US Welfare ReformJulie Graber
This paper uses Bacchi's "What’s the Problem" policy analysis tool to examine the problem representations reflected in the 1996 US welfare reform as it was enacted and the implications of that representation in the development and implementation
After reading the report on services in Georgia, write a short paper.docxADDY50
After reading the report on services in Georgia, write a short paper that provides a summary of what it says. Explain how a market analysis was accomplished, how this information was used to determine the outcome of existing services, and how it was used to design services. Then provide an opinion on how this information could be useful in advocating for expansion of services.
Executive Summary
This report details the results of a mixed-method community outreach effort conducted by the Georgia Health Policy Center (GHPC) as part of The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta’s Champions for Children with Exceptional Needs Initiative (Champions).
The purpose of this outreach effort is (1) to provide a systematic examination of the existing gaps in service and support for families with medically fragile and special needs children in Georgia and (2) to compile a list of service delivery options gathered from the community outreach efforts that could be provided to families through the funding of an appropriate nonprofit or network of nonprofits across Georgia. The report will be shared with The Community Foundation and the Champions Advisory Committee to guide them in the distribution of at least $2.2 million that has been appropriated by the Georgia Legislature to meet the needs of this population.
Data collection for the Initiative used both quantitative and qualitative approaches to explore the experience of families with special needs and medically fragile children. The quantitative component included a Medicaid claims analysis of children eligible for the Katie Beckett Waiver program during Calendar Year 2005. The qualitative data collection methods for the community outreach effort included:
Three focus groups with parents of special needs and medically fragile children;
Sixteen Key Informant interviews with parents, advocates, representatives from local and
state-wide non-profit agencies and medical providers;
Two community forums structured to present data collected in the needs assessment and
outreach and gather suggestions/feedback from community members regarding possible service delivery models.
Medicaid Claims Analysis
Findings from the Medicaid claims analysis of children who received services through the Katie Beckett Waiver program in 2005 exemplify the needs of many medically-fragile children in Georgia. In Calendar Year 2005 (CY2005), there were 6,572 children enrolled in Medicaid through the Katie Beckett class of assistance. The descriptive analysis of the Katie Beckett enrollees found that:
95% (6,130) of the Katie Beckett children submitted at least one Medicaid claim during the year. The top two diagnoses, specific delays in development and psychoses with origin specific to childhood (infantile autism, disintegrative psychosis and schizophrenia) comprise 28% of all the outpatient claims.
The average Medicaid reimbursement per Katie Beckett recipient was $5,033 in CY2005. The services that Medicaid paid .
THE RECENT SLOWDOWN IN THE WAR ON POVERTY 50 Y.docxAASTHA76
THE RECENT SLOWDOWN IN
THE WAR ON POVERTY 50
YEARS LATER:
A PROGRESS REPORT
The Council of Economic Advisers
January 2014
2
Executive Summary
“Unfortunately, many Americans live on the outskirts of hope—some because of their poverty,
and some because of their color, and all too many because of both. Our task is to help replace
their despair with opportunity. This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional
war on poverty in America. I urge this Congress and all Americans to join with me in that effort.”
- President Lyndon B. Johnson, January 8, 1964
Fifty years ago, in January of 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a “War on Poverty”
and introduced initiatives designed to improve the education, health, skills, jobs, and access to
economic resources of those struggling to make ends meet. While there is more work to do, in
the ensuing decades we have strengthened and reformed many of these programs and had
significant success in reducing poverty. In this report, the Council of Economic Advisers presents
evidence of the progress made possible by decades of bipartisan efforts to fight poverty by
expanding economic opportunity and rewarding hard work. We also document some of the
key steps the Obama Administration has taken to further increase opportunity and economic
security by improving key programs while ensuring greater efficiency and integrity. These steps
prevented millions of hardworking Americans from slipping into poverty during the worst
economic crisis since the Great Depression.
Poverty has declined by more than one-third since 1967.
The percent of the population in poverty when measured to include tax credits and
other benefits has declined from 25.8 percent in 1967 to 16.0 percent in 2012.
These figures use new historical estimates of the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty
Measure (SPM) anchored to today’s poverty thresholds. The SPM is widely
acknowledged to measure poverty more accurately than the official poverty measure,
which excludes the value of refundable tax credits and benefits like nutrition assistance
and has other limitations.
By anchoring the measure to today’s poverty standards we are able to ask how many
people in each year since 1967 would have had inflation-adjusted family resources
below the 2012 SPM poverty thresholds.
Despite real progress in the War on Poverty, there is more work to do.
In 2012, there were 49.7 million Americans grappling with the economic and social
hardships of living below the poverty line, including 13.4 million children.
While the United States is often seen as the land of economic opportunity, only about
half of low-income Americans make it out of the lowest income distribution quintile
over a 20-year period. About 40 percent of the differences in parents’ income are
3
reflected in children’s income as they become adults, pointing to strong lingerin.
Similar to Food Assistance and Nutrition Research Small Grants Program ... (20)
Welcome to the Program Your Destiny course. In this course, we will be learning the technology of personal transformation, neuroassociative conditioning (NAC) as pioneered by Tony Robbins. NAC is used to deprogram negative neuroassociations that are causing approach avoidance and instead reprogram yourself with positive neuroassociations that lead to being approach automatic. In doing so, you change your destiny, moving towards unlocking the hypersocial self within, the true self free from fear and operating from a place of personal power and love.
Ethical_dilemmas_MDI_Gurgaon-Business Ethics Case 1.pptx
Food Assistance and Nutrition Research Small Grants Program ...
1. Child Care Programs Help Parents Find and Keep Jobs:
Funding Shortfalls Leave Many Families Without Assistance
By Jennifer Mezey1
February 10, 2004
Introduction
Child care subsidies help low-income families work and leave welfare, but funding
shortfalls are forcing states to enact restrictive policies that are hurting poor families and
efforts to promote their employment and earnings. The Administration’s recently
proposed FY 2005 budget would make this situation even worse, causing 447,000
children receiving child care assistance in FY 2003 to lose this assistance by FY 2009.2
This paper explains that:
Federal and state child care assistance to low-income working families grew
•
substantially between 1996 and 2001 as a result of welfare reform.
Increased child care assistance—both for welfare recipients and for other low-income
•
working families—was an essential part of states’ strategies to help promote work
and reduce the need for welfare. During these years, employment of low-income and
single mothers increased significantly.
Child care assistance has played a key role in increasing employment among mothers
•
and helping families leave welfare for work.
Even during this period of progress toward providing child care assistance to a larger
•
share of families who need help, the great majority of eligible children remained
unserved as demand outstripped supply.
The growth of child care funding essentially stopped in FY 2001 with Temporary
•
Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and state dollars becoming rapidly depleted
as funding sources.
www.clasp.org • Center for Law and Social Policy • (202) 906-8000
1015 15th Street, NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20005
2. Limited resources have forced states across the country to cut child care assistance,
•
creating hardship for already struggling low-income families.
This paper concludes with excerpts from recent press coverage about child care
restrictions and cutbacks in 15 states.
Federal and state child care assistance to low-income working families grew
substantially between 1996 and 2001 as a result of welfare reform.
In 1996, Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
•
Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). In recognition of the importance of child care to
work, Congress accompanied increased work requirements with increased federal
child care dollars and gave states the ability to use federal and state TANF funds for
child care.
Congress also specified that child care subsidies must be made available for families
•
not receiving TANF cash assistance as well. In FY 2000, only about 20 percent of
families receiving child care assistance were TANF recipients.3
Since 1996, federal and state spending on child care from the Child Care and
•
Development Block Grant (CCDBG) and TANF dollars grew substantially. While
state child care spending increased between FY 1996 and FY 2001, approximately
three-quarters of the overall spending growth came from increased federal spending,
a large portion of which was from TANF funds.4
These additional resources allowed states to increase access to and improve the
•
quality of child care services. States served more children and invested in quality
improvement initiatives. These initiatives included training and educating teachers,
providing higher compensation for teachers who pursued training and education while
staying in the child care field, and increasing provider payment rates, which allows
providers to hire more staff and improve their quality of care.
Increased child care assistance—both for welfare recipients and for other low-income
working families—was an essential part of states’ strategies to help promote work and
reduce the need for welfare. During these years, employment of low-income and single
mothers increased significantly.
TANF caseloads experienced record declines, falling by half between FY 1996 and
•
FY 2001, with increased access to child care arguably playing an important role.
These caseload declines freed up TANF funds that had previously been used for cash
assistance for states to use on child care assistance and other support services for low-
income families.
The number of employed single mothers increased from 6.4 million in 1996 to 7.3
•
million in 2001.5
Center for Law and Social Policy
2
3. Employment rates among low-income single mothers with young children grew from
•
44 percent in 1996 to 59 percent in 2000.6
Furthermore, the expansion of child care made it possible for more families receiving
•
welfare to work or participate in work activities. The share of families working while
receiving welfare more than doubled between FY 1996 and FY 2001, growing from
11.3 percent to 26.7 percent. By FY 2001, about 605,000 welfare recipients were
working or participating in work activities.7
Child care assistance has played a key role in increasing employment among mothers
and helping families leave welfare for work.8
Single mothers with young children who receive child care assistance are 40 percent
•
more likely to still be employed after two years then those who do not receive such
assistance. The same analysis found that former welfare recipients who receive child
care assistance are 82 percent more likely to be employed after two years than those
who do not receive such assistance.9
A recent study of current and former welfare recipients in Michigan found that receipt
•
of a child care subsidy led to more months of work and higher earnings.10
A study of changes in Rhode Island’s child care program found that policies that
•
expanded access to child care subsidies significantly increased the probability that
parents would leave welfare for work and work more than 20 hours per week.11
A national study found that 28 percent of welfare leavers who didn’t receive child
•
care assistance returned to welfare within three months after leaving, compared to
only 19.5 percent of welfare leavers who did receive child care assistance.12
Even during this period of progress toward providing child care assistance to a larger
share of families who need help, the great majority of eligible children remained
unserved as demand outstripped supply.
The number of children receiving child care assistance doubled between 1996 and
•
2001, from one million to over two million children. While this increase was
dramatic, it still meant that most federally eligible children were not receiving child
care assistance.
The growth of child care funding essentially stopped in FY 2001 with TANF and state
dollars becoming rapidly depleted as funding sources.
TANF was a growing source of child care funding through 2001, but has
•
declined as a funding source since then. Between FYs 1997 and 2000, the use of
federal TANF funds for child care increased from $249 million to $4 billion. The use
of TANF for child care declined to $3.5 billion in FYs 2001 and 2002.13 Moreover,
in each of the last three years, annual TANF funding by states exceeded their basic
Center for Law and Social Policy
3
4. block grants by about $2 billion. Therefore, states will need to make cuts to current
services and activities just to stay within available funding in the next five years, and
they could not redirect other TANF funds to child care without cutting other services
even further.
States do not have large stores of unspent TANF funds that could be used for
•
child care without disrupting current and future services. A recent U.S. General
Accounting Office (GAO) report projected that states would have approximately $5.6
billion of unspent TANF balances by the end of FY 2003.14 However, many of these
dollars cannot be used to expand child care services for three reasons. First, as noted,
current TANF spending exceeds the amount of state block grants, and state reserves
of unspent TANF funds have fallen by over 50 percent since FY 2000; if this pace
continues, it will leave almost all states with few or no TANF reserves in a few years.
Second, about 30 percent of these funds have been transferred to CCDBG and the
Social Services Block Grant, which means that they are already committed to meeting
ongoing child care and social service needs. Third, some portion of the remaining
$3.9 billion has been obligated, or legally committed, to other specific purposes; these
funds could not be redirected to other TANF purposes without forcing current or
future services cuts.
Enactment of the House or Senate Finance welfare legislation would not free up
•
the portion of unspent and unobligated TANF funds that states received but did
not spend in prior years. Some people have suggested that if federal law is changed
to liberalize allowable uses of prior-year funds, it would free up additional funding
for child care. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reports that
states had over $2 billion in unobligated prior-year TANF funds in FY 2002; under
current law, these funds can only be used for TANF assistance. Therefore, states face
restrictions in using these funds for child care for employed families. The House
legislation and the Senate Finance Committee bill would allow states to use these
prior-year funds for any allowable TANF expenditure, including child care for
employed families. This is a positive change that will enhance state flexibility.
However, because states are already facing structural deficits, they cannot use these
funds to expand child care without deepening those deficits. And, if states chose to
use all of these funds for child care, they would have no reserves to meet future
needs, such as caseload increases, further economic downturns, or increased work
requirements.
States continue to face serious budget shortfalls impacting child care spending.
•
States are experiencing the worst fiscal crises since World War II. Since FY 2001,
states have had to close budget gaps cumulatively totaling $200 billion. States faced
a budget gap of almost $80 billion for FY 2004.15 Current estimates are that states
could face a $50 billion shortfall in FY 2005. However, this decline in budget
shortfalls was achieved because of significant budget cuts (to programs like child
care), use of reserve funds, and one-time budget actions, rather than through
significant growth in the revenues that would be necessary to restore spending after
past cuts.16
Center for Law and Social Policy
4
5. The additional funding Congress provided last year to help address the states’
•
fiscal situation does not obviate the need for child care funding during TANF
and child care reauthorizations. In 2003, states received $20 billion in fiscal relief.
Half of these funds were in the form of increased federal Medicaid contributions, and
half are for general purposes. While these funds have played an important role in
helping states, they were only available for FYs 2003 and 2004. The need for
additional child care funding is not limited to these years, and it will grow even larger
after FY 2004, when no state fiscal relief funds will be available. Second, $20 billion
covers only a modest fraction of state FY 2004 budget shortfalls. Finally, child care
will be one of many programs, including health care, education, and public
safety, competing for the modest amount of available funds.17 There is little evidence
to date that the funds have helped restore the numerous child care cuts states have
already made.
Under fiscal stress, states across the country have been forced to cut child care
assistance.
In April 2003, the GAO reported that, since January 2001, nearly half the states (23)
•
have made policy changes that reduce the availability of child care subsidies for low-
income working families, and 11 states were proposing future policy changes that
will decrease current levels of child care funding.18
While the GAO report showed that some states are making changes that would
increase the availability of subsidies, the authors concluded that the overall effect
of state policy decisions since January 2001 has been to decrease the availability
of child care assistance for low-income working families.
The GAO also determined that the brunt of these cuts was being born by low-
income working families who are not receiving welfare.
In about half the states, low-income families who are eligible for and need child care
•
assistance are either not allowed to apply for assistance or are placed on a waiting
list.19
Recent newspaper articles show that low-income families who need child care
•
assistance continue to face hardships as they work to support their families. Articles
from the past four months show that child care budget shortfalls are forcing states to
cut the number of available slots, lower eligibility, and increase co-payments:
Alabama: “Just since April, the Department of Human Resources has trimmed
the number of children in the child care program from 39,000 to 32,000. This has
helped swell the waiting list for child care assistance from about 6,000 to 16,000.
In the Birmingham area alone, the number of children waiting has jumped from
900 to 3,500 in just the past year.” (Birmingham News, 10/29/03).
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6. Arizona: “Nearly 7,200 children whose parents need help paying for child care
are on a waiting list that has grown steadily since lawmakers capped the program
in March. The numbers are expected to double by July.” (Tucson Citizen,
12/31/03).
Florida: “Though the new year just started, the city is already out of money for
those in need of daycare help. The Children’s Commission goal is to help every
child in Jacksonville have the opportunity and support they need to succeed. But
those who need day care and are not already in the system may have a long wait
ahead. Kelli Gunter, a single mom who works full time, has been looking for help
with day care for her son, Keilan. Gunter told Channel 4’s Jim Piggot that she’s
doing all she can to keep off welfare, but she keeps getting turned down for child-
care assistance. ‘We just needed a little bit of help,’ said Gunter. ‘I'm working and
I would like a little bit of help.’ Gunter was confused, and she wrote to the city
asking why the Children’s Commission couldn’t help her.” (WJXT-TV CBS 4
Jacksonville, posted and updated 1/5/04 at News4Jax.com).
“Funding for day care has not increased for the city since 2001. Most of those
funds come from the state, which is the middle of budget problems of its own.
‘More people are living here, more people are needing support with child care,
but the dollars have remained the same,’ said Linda Lanier, the commission’s
executive director. Right now the commission is helping 7,700 clients, but the
waiting list has more than 1,400 kids, including Gunter’s son.” (WJXT-TV CBS 4
Jacksonville, posted and updated 1/5/04 at News4Jax.com).
Kentucky: “Kentucky is facing a crisis in affordable child care that’s particularly
hard on families getting off welfare, advocates say, because parents who take jobs
often don’t make enough to pay someone to take care of their children. Kenya
Clay-Arvin and her husband, Benjamin Arvin, faced a stark choice last month—
pay the heat and light bill or pay for child care. Benjamin Arvin was forced to
take off work—without pay—to watch their sons, ages 3 and 6, because the
couple made too much money to get on the waiting list for the child care
assistance. But because their work is seasonal and their income fluctuates,
they’ve been told they might qualify if they reapply. ‘That is killing our pockets,’
said Clay-Arvin, 27. ‘We have no money to pay for child care.’” (The Louisville
Courier-Journal, 1/12/04).
“People moving off welfare are putting additional pressure on the system.
Kentucky’s welfare caseload has steadily declined since federal welfare-to-work
reforms began in fiscal 1996, from almost 72,000 families that year to just under
32,000 in fiscal 2003. The child-care aid program didn’t have a waiting list until
May. In its first six weeks, 2,700 families were put on the list. By the end of last
month, 3,466 families were waiting.” (The Louisville Courier-Journal, 1/12/04).
“‘What we’ve mostly done is swell the ranks of the working poor,’ said Viola
Miller, who oversaw the state’s welfare reform efforts as secretary of the Cabinet
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7. for Families and Children until last month. ‘The issue is not welfare any more—
the issue is poverty.’”(The Louisville Courier-Journal, 1/12/04).
“In May the state began putting applicants on a waiting list for child-care
assistance. The list now numbers 3,466 families and 5,649 children. Meanwhile,
tighter rules are making it tougher for parents, especially if they are students, to
qualify for the money, and some are being cut from the program. Since Oct. 1,
families’ income must be at 150 percent or less of the federal poverty level to
qualify for child-care assistance—about $27,600 a year for a family of four. The
program used to cover those making up to 165 percent of the federal poverty
level.” (The Louisville Courier-Journal, 1/12/04).
Louisiana: “As of April, welfare recipients and low-income residents of
Louisiana have had to meet new co-payment requirements for child care, said
Judy Watts, president of Agenda for Children. People who used to have the costs
covered fully, she said, now must pay $22.50 per child each month.” (New
Orleans Times-Picayune, 10/21/03).
Maryland: “For the first time in a decade, working poor families who need help
paying their child-care bills are being forced onto a long and growing waiting list,
the result of cutbacks in state funding that began last year and that child-care
advocates expect will only get worse. More than 2,000 children of working poor
parents in Montgomery County are on a list to receive subsidies, with 1,953
children awaiting a state subsidy and 95 awaiting help from the county.”
(Washington Post, 2/9/04).
“The state-funded ‘purchase of care’ subsidy began excluding new working poor
families one year ago, automatically putting them on a waiting list and offering
new subsidies only to those families on welfare. Although working poor families
already in the program were allowed to continue receiving the subsidy, beginning
this week they all will be required to pay more for child care, with the top rate
climbing from the 36 percent of child-care costs to 50 percent.” (Washington
Post, 2/9/04).
“‘That means some of these families are going to have to drop out [of the subsidy
program],’ said Harriet Berger, the vice chair of the Montgomery County
Commission on Child Care, who runs a day-care center in Germantown. ‘They're
already juggling just to make it with what they have now.’” (Washington Post,
2/9/04).
“What advocates such as Berger fear most is that the shrinking subsidy program
will mean some parents will have to quit work and return to welfare. Or, they’ll
be forced to put their children in cheaper, unlicensed day care, places where they
may be parked in front of the television all day.” (Washington Post, 2/9/04).
Center for Law and Social Policy
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8. Massachusetts: “This year, the state cut more than $14 million in child care
funding alone, eliminating slots for 1,500 kids, despite more than 17,000 parents
already waiting for financial aid to afford child care assistance.” (Milford Daily
News, 10/28/03).
Minnesota: “Since the legislature cut $86 million out of Minnesota’s subsidized
child care system, about 1,300 of the 12,000 families that received the subsidy last
year no longer get it.” (Grand Forks Herald, 11/18/03).
“In Ramsey [County], more than 200 families who meet the financial criteria for
child care programs were removed from the program because of county cutbacks.
They joined about 2,000 families on that county’s waiting list for subsidized child
care.” (Grand Forks Herald, 11/18/03).
“As of June, more than 7,300 families were on waiting lists, and that number has
probably grown. Kandiyohi County didn’t have a waiting list in June. But it
started one once funding was cut, and more than 100 names are already on it.”
(Grand Forks Herald, 11/18/03).
“Eligibility changes include lowering of income eligibility from $3,179 per month
for a family of three to $2,225 per month and increasing of co-payments.”
(Grand Forks Herald, 11/18/03).
Mississippi: “In Mississippi, only 30 percent of children who qualify for child-
care assistance got it last year. There are more than 12,000 families waiting for
assistance.” (The Biloxi Sun Herald, 10/19/03).
Nevada: “More than 6,500 poverty-stricken families in Nevada are on a year-long
waiting list for state money to help pay their child-care bills because of Gov.
Kenny Guinn’s flat budget mandate and tax battles at the legislature. And more
than 100 additional Northern Nevada families that make so little money they are
in danger of seeking welfare to help have been kicked off child-care assistance
because of the same budget problems. For Donna Young, a single mother of two
who makes $8 an hour and has been trying to get child-care assistance for two
years, that means warnings from her power company that her heat may be shut off
soon. For 22-year-old Amy Tucker, who will lose her child-care help in January,
that means getting a second job. For the new year, her 22-month-old son Tyson
Owens will see less of his mom, who already works full-time. The $300 a month
Tucker receives from the state toward her $500-a-month day-care bill is what
stands between her and the welfare office. It is the key to her independence, she
said.” (Reno Gazette-Journal, 11/29/2003).
“Most of the families waiting for child-care assistance are described as working
poor, making between $7 and $8 an hour. Minimum wage in Nevada is $5.15. In
order for a parent to keep a job—and stay of welfare—the family needs child
Center for Law and Social Policy
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9. care. But they don’t make enough money to pay the bill, which can range from
$300 to $600 a month for one child.” (Reno Gazette-Journal, 11/29/03).
New York: “Karinna Fermin was barely scraping by on the $250 she makes a
week as a home health aide. Now she doesn’t know how she’ll pay the bills.
Because of budget cuts, Fermin’s 2-year-old daughter, Adryanna, lost her free slot
at an E. 13th St. day care center. ‘Right now I make $250 a week, and I spend
about $125 a week on baby-sitters,’ Fermin said yesterday at the Manhattan
Children’s Services office.” (New York Daily News, 10/28/03).
North Carolina: “Children of Wake County’s working poor can stay in day care
until the beginning of March before possibly losing the subsidies that enable them
to attend. Wake Human Services is facing a $1 million shortfall that, if not
closed, could force the removal of up to 900 school-age children from day care
March 1. The date was pushed back from the beginning of February after the
program’s directors were able to secure about $500,000 from numerous sources.”
(The Raleigh News Observer, 1/8/03).
“Wake County was initially $2 million short of what it needs to run the program
for the fiscal year that ends June 30. The program helps poor families that have
jobs. [Gloria] Cook [the Wake County program administrator] blames the deficit
on a number of factors, including a slower rate of child dropouts and a spike in
the cost of child care. But most prominent is that $15 million the state legislature
appropriated for fiscal 2002-03 for subsidies across the state was a one-time grant.
Many counties, including Wake and Durham, used the extra money to draw
children off the waiting lists. The waiting lists are back. In Wake County, 2,500
children are waiting for slots, up 1,100 since November, Cook said.” (The Raleigh
News Observer, 1/8/03).
Ohio: “Before the cuts [in child care subsidies which took effect on October 1 and
eliminated subsidies for 11,000 children], the [child care] program was open to
families making up to 185 percent of the federal poverty level—$28,236 for a
family of three. The state reduced eligibility to 150 percent of the federal poverty
level—$22,896 for a family of three. Once eligible, families in the program can
stay as long as their earnings don’t surpass 165 percent of the poverty level,
which is $25,188 for a family of three.” (Dayton Daily News, 11/24/03).
South Carolina: “By August, South Carolina’s 4,700 children who live in
‘working poor’ families will lose their vouchers. For several years, the vouchers
have gone to two groups of families: working poor families such as [Vernetta]
Howell’s [a single working mother] and welfare-to-work families. Rising child-
care costs associated with the welfare-to-work families have wiped out money for
the working poor families, according to the Health and Human Services
Department. So only welfare-to-work families now are eligible for the vouchers.”
(Myrtle Beach Sun News, 10/28/03).
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10. West Virginia: “In the last 18 months, West Virginians have seen child care
subsidy eligibility criteria reduced from 200 percent of the federal poverty line to
150 percent, family co-pays increased as much as 50 percent for some eligible
families, a 50 percent reduction in the reimbursement rate to informal relative
child care providers, and child care quality initiatives dropped due to lack of
funds.” (Charleston Daily Mail, 10/30/03).
Endnotes
1
Mark Greenberg and Sharon Parrott participated in the writing of this piece.
2
Mezey, J., Parrott, S.,Greenberg, M., & Fremstad, S. (2004). Reversing Direction on Welfare
Reform: President's Budget Cuts Child Care for More Than 300,000 Children. Washington, DC: Center
for Law and Social Policy and Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
3
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Child Care Bureau. (2003, Jan.). Child Care
Development Fund [CCDF] Report to Congress. Washington, DC: Author.
4
For child care spending figures, see U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Child Care Bureau.
(2003). State Spending Under the FY 2002 Appropriation for the Child Care and Development Fund
(CCDF) (As of 9/30/02). Washington, DC: Author. Available at
http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/ccb/research/02acf696/overview.htm; U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services, Child Care Bureau. (2002). FY 2001 State Spending Under the Child Care and
Development Fund (CCDF) (As of 9/30/01). Washington, DC: Author. Available at
http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/ccb/research/01acf696/overview.htm; U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services, Child Care Bureau. (2001). FY 2000 State Spending Under the Child Care and
Development Fund (CCDF) (As of 9/30/00). Washington, DC: Author. Available at
http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/ccb/research/00acf696/overview.htm; U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services, Child Care Bureau. (2000). FY 1999 State Spending Under the Child Care and
Development Fund (CCDF). Washington, DC: Author. Available at
http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/ccb/research/99acf696/overview.htm; CLASP calculations based on
unpublished Child Care Bureau data (FY 1996-FY1998). For TANF figures, see Mezey, J., & Richie, B.
(2003). Welfare Dollars No Longer an Increasing Source of Child Care Funding: Use of Funds in FY
2002Unchanged from FY 2001, Down from FY 2000. Washington, DC: CLASP.
5
Congressional Research Service. (2002). Trends in Welfare, Work and the Economic Well-Being of
Female-Headed Families with Children: 1987-2001. Washington, DC: Author, Figures 1 and 3.
6
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2003). TANF Fifth Annual Report to Congress.
Washington, DC: Author, Figure 1, page IV-127.
7
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2003). TANF Fifth Annual Report to Congress.
Washington, DC: Author, Exhibit II, page X-193; Greenberg, M., & Rahmanou, H. (2003). TANF
Participation in 2001. Washington, DC: CLASP. Available at:
http://www.clasp.org/DMS/Documents/1048004065.37/2001_TANF_Participation.pdf.
8
Fremstad, S. (2004). Recent Welfare Reform Research Findings: Implications for TANF Reauthorization
and State TANF Policies. Washington, DC: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
9
Boushey, H. (2002). Staying Employed After Welfare: Work Supports and Job Quality Vital to
Employment Tenure and Wage Growth. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, with calculations
done in Children’s Defense Fund. (2003). Key Facts: Essential Information about Child Care, Early
Education and School-Age Care. Washington, DC: Author.
10
Danziger, S., Oltmans Ananat, E., & Browing, K. (2003). Childcare Subsidies and the Transition from
Welfare to Work. Ann Arbor, MI: National Poverty Center, Working Paper Series, #03-11.
11
Dryden Witte, A., & Queralt, M. (2003). Impacts of Eligibility Expansions and Provider Reimbursement
Rate Increases on Child Care Subsidy Take-Up Rates, Welfare Use, and Work. Cambridge, MA: National
Bureau of Economic Research.
12
Loprest, P. (2003). Use of Government Benefits Increases among Families Leaving Welfare. Snapshots
of America’s Families III Series, No. 6. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.
Center for Law and Social Policy
10
11. 13
Mezey, J., & Richie, B. (2003). Welfare Dollars No Longer an Increasing Source of Child Care
Funding: Use of Funds in FY 2002Unchanged from FY 2001, Down from FY 2000. Washington, DC:
CLASP.
14
U.S. General Accounting Office. (Sept. 2003). Welfare Reform: Information on TANF Balances, GA-03-
1094. Washington, DC: Author.
15
National Conference of State Legislatures. (July 23, 2003). State Budget & Tax Actions 2003.
Preliminary Report: Executive Summary. Denver, CO: Author. Available at www.ncsl.org.
16
Johnson, N. (2003). Projected State Budget Deficits for Fiscal Year 2005 Continue to Threaten Public
Services. Washington, DC: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
17
Fremstad, S. (2003). State Fiscal Relief Funds Do Not Address the Need For Substantial Increases in
Child Care Funding. Washington, DC: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
18
U.S. General Accounting Office. (2003). Child Care: Recent State Policy Changes Affecting the
Availability of Assistance for Low-Income Families. Washington, DC: Author.
19
Forthcoming Children’s Defense Fund report; U.S. General Accounting Office, 2003; Children’s
Defense Fund. (2003). State Developments in Child Care, Early Education and School-Age Care 2002.
Washington, DC: Author.
Center for Law and Social Policy
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