Trends in the U.S. Child Care Subsidy Program
It is no longer news that families across the nation have had a hard time finding child care. One reason for this ongoing issue has been a significant drop in the number of providers. From 2007 to 2017 across the country, almost 100,000 more licensed child care providers closed their businesses than opened one (Office of Child Care, 2019). This decline in the number of providers was exclusively among those who provide care within their own homes (home-based providers), while the number of child care centers over the same time slightly increased. As previous research shows (Halle et al., 2009), Black, Hispanic, and families with low incomes tend to prefer home-based care. Thus, these trends may block access to quality child care for disadvantaged families more than other families.
Families with low income tend to use home-based care because center-based care is often unaffordable to them (Baldiga et al., 2018). Additionally, home-based care tends to have more flexibility and offer more nonstandard hours than child care centers (Adams, 2019), which is important to parents that have to work different shifts and have work schedules that change with little notice, like many families with low income do. Finally, many areas do not have child care centers nearby, or do not have enough, relying on home-based providers to fill the gap. The shrinking number of home-based providers could disproportionally hurt families that cannot afford child care centers, as well as those in more rural and underserviced areas.
One way to help increase access for families with low income is the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF). A new PPA report explores the trends in family use of CCDF programs from 2009 to 2019 by race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Specifically, we examined whether the rise of center-based child care has influenced subsidy use by Black, Hispanic, and low-income families.
You can read the issue brief below.
This issue brief was supported by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) of the United States (U.S.) Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award (Grant #: 90YE0281) totaling $99,885 with 100 percent funded by ACF/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by ACF/HHS, or the U.S. Government. For more information, please visit the ACF website, Administrative and National Policy Requirements.
