RH Reality
Check was on a roll the past few weeks. Sheila
Bapat took a look at an article posted on the Huffington Post, which
reported that parents are afraid of losing their jobs if they need to care for
their sick children. The story correctly poses the need for more paid sick days
and points out that when a child is ill, his/her parents typically need to pull
him/her out of care and stay home with the child.
However,
as Bapat points out the story assumes child care is accessible to begin with. However,
recent trend indicate that child care is becoming more costly, anywhere from
$4,000 to $15,000 annually which is an added burden to the low-income. Bapat
invokes the 50% of all American jobs pay less than $34,000 per year or less,
which is an accurate figure, but juxtaposes that figure with outrageous child
care costs.
Now, there
are public resources to help parents pay for child care, but new research shows
these resources are not as plentiful as they used to be. The state of Maryland
has discussed pulling some back into the welfare realm to subsidize TANF and
food stamps if the feds cut back or sequester. The National Women’s Law Center
issued a report in October showing 27 states had at least on child care
assistance policy decline in its ability to serve low-earning parents compared
to the previous year.
The NWLC
report studies a range of state policies that impact access to child care subsidies
for low-income individuals. These include income eligibility limits to qualify
for child care assistance, co-payments, reimbursement rates for child care
providers, waiting lists, and eligibility for assistance for parents searching
for a job. The NWLC found these policies are critical to families’ access to
child care assistance.
Most
states fell behind in 2001. There was a little help in 2009-2010 with the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds were applied to child care
assistance, but those funds are long gone now.
So why the
fall now? Most likely the budget crises and that child care assistance come in
the form of block grants: the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG)
and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Block grants provide
flexibility for states to use the funds as they see fit. This is opposed to
categorical grants, which have more requirements and regulations.
This
structure allows child care funding to give the states freedom to help the
working poor, but changes in the child care assistance policies are reflections
of states making tradeoffs due to budget troubles. According to the NWLC, TANF
and CCDBG yield $8.170 billion in 2012, and when adjusted for inflation, this
comes to a bit less than 2011’s child care assistance funding and $2.5 billion
less than 2001, when adjusted for inflation. So some states have to cut costs
by making some programs stricter and others looser.
Trade
offs. This is a particular concern for those working with the low-income and
welfare recipients. Those of us with Irish Catholic Guilt look at it as robbing
Peter to pay Paul, but people are going to be missed, and the money is going to
get tighter. I can’t look at my Google alert on welfare right now without
seeing a half dozen or so articles, blogs, and editorials about the increase in
federal spending on “WELFARE,” which has anyone writing about the increase read
the report it is based off of, the request for the report, or could do basic statistical
analysis they would understand where the increase comes from. Also the
potential for fudging the numbers given they are counting everything as welfare
except Veteran Assistance program.
