Child Care

The cost of raising a family in America is high and continues to rise, with inflation rising by 23 percent between 2020 and 2025. For working families, some of the largest nondiscretionary expenses continue to be health care and child care.

Congress has directed HHS to operate the Children’s Interagency Coordinating Council (CICC). The CICC is charged with fostering greater coordination and transparency on child policy across federal agencies and examining a broad array of cross-cutting issues affecting child poverty and child well-being.

Childhood development experts recommend specific practices for afterschool and youth development programs to promote well-being and healthy development, including positive relationships; rich learning experiences and knowledge development; environments filled with safety and belonging; the development of skills, habits, and mindsets; and integrated support systems.

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Key Points

This brief shares findings from an analysis using U.S. Census Household Pulse Survey data to examine child care workers’ experience of economic hardship from 2021 to 2022 along different measures of economic hardship, across time, by race and ethnicity, and whether child care workers lived with young children. We find:

The child care subsidy program provides critical support to families to support parental labor force participation as well as child development. This study provides a historical view of the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of parents who received subsidies over the 2009-2013 period.

The Early Childhood Workforce Data project highlights exemplary state activities that drive data use to address early childhood workforce issues, including the national early childhood workforce shortage. A U.S.

Social safety net programs provide different types of support to people facing economic hardship. This data point presents estimates of overall participation in the social safety net in 2019, the latest year of available data and presents rates of participation in multiple programs.Key Points:

People facing economic instability often need more than one program or service. This pre-pandemic analysis looks at the reach of the social safety net, including the interaction of specific programs, to better understand program participation as the economy continues to recover.Key Points: