Child Care

This is the third ASPE brief about a qualitative study examining lower-income mothers’ attachment to work around the time of childbirth and the role of state paid family leave (PFL) programs in supporting their return to employment. This brief focuses on the role of PFL in facilitating child care arrangements of a sample of mothers. Highlights are:

Children under age five are about as likely to participate in nonparental care arrangements as they were in the mid-1990s. Children in nonparental care are now more likely to participate in center programs and less likely to receive care from family child care providers.

The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing child care providers across the country to close. Between February and April 2020, employment in the child care industry dropped by about one third, losing 360,000 jobs. We do not yet know how this will affect the longer-term economic health of this sector. This has implications for the supply, quality, and price of child care for low-income families.

This research brief presents findings using national data from child care subsidy administrative records that states submit to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The analysis shows that a greater percentage of subsidized care occurred in licensed child care centers in FY 2016 than in FY 2005.

This factsheet provides descriptive information on child care eligibility and receipt. Of the 13.3 million children eligible for child care subsidies under federal rules, 15 percent received subsidies. Of the 8.5 million children eligible for child care subsidies under state rules, 24 percent received subsidies. Poorer children were more likely to receive subsidies than less poor children.

This factsheet provides descriptive information on child care eligibility and receipt. Of the 13.6 million children eligible for child care subsidies under federal rules, 15 percent received subsidies. Of the 8.4 million children eligible for child care subsidies under state rules, 25 percent received subsidies. Poorer children were more likely to receive subsidies than less poor children.

States have the option to require recipients of child care subsidies and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to cooperate with child support agencies seeking to establish paternity and support orders; and to enforce child support obligations as a condition of eligibility.

This analysis builds on the ASPE publication on child support cooperation requirements to determine the overlap in the populations of custodial and noncustodial parents with and without formal child support orders, that are eligible for both Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and subsidized child care (CCDF).  The data used in the infographic are based on TRIM3 analysis of th

This Brief provides an examination of the amount of time that low-income families from 32 states received child care subsidies.  These families began receiving government-funded child care subsidies during Fiscal Year 2012, prior to the reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act.  In general, families utilized child care subsidy programs for short time p