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Summary of Key Findings from Working Paper No. 8
Background
An important component of welfare reform,
child care subsidies help former welfare recipients secure
care for their children while they are working. But recent
research suggests that the intended beneficiaries of the subsidies
make little or only episodic use of them. What accounts for
this low level of child care subsidy use? Is it a function
of widely recognized inadequacies in levels of funding or
of the programs’ bureaucratic complexity? Do features of the
everyday lives of low-income families also matter?
Presenting ethnographic evidence on the
child care choices of 38 low-income families who were participants
of in the Milwaukee New Hope experiment, this paper accounts
for low and episodic patterns of child care benefit use among
targeted families and offers suggestions for policies that
might increase benefit use.
Key Findings
- Tying child care supplements to monthly
work requirements or income thresholds might not succeed
because low-wage work is often episodic and subject to change
— realities that rigid program rules often do not take into
account. As a result, many low-income working families who
use these supports must contend with the loss or reduction
of benefits as changes in family work and income situations
trigger loss of benefits. Programs designed with a well-grounded
understanding of how the circumstances of the families they
serve vary and can change over time, by contrast, will be
more likely to provide more stable benefits to a larger
number of families.
- Child care subsidies generally require
that care providers, whether center-based on home-based,
be state-certified and licensed. In Wisconsin, subsidies
cannot be spent on unlicensed caregivers. Yet, many of the
families in the study sample rely on relatives and friends
to provide care since this arrangement fits best with their
beliefs and values associated with the meaning of home as
a preferred place of child care, and the meanings relating
to the safety, security, and proper child training present
in care settings outside of the home.
- Child care subsidy programs may undervalue
the social and moral educational qualities of more home-based
settings by recognizing only the academic and social stimulation
provided in center-based care; this emphasis is not consistent
with the beliefs of many parents who could use assistance.
One solution that would provide better match of program
goals and parents’ values would be to help some parents
become certified child care providers. By promoting higher
levels of pay for such “carework,” programs can better meet
their goals of placing children in effective, licensed home
care while leaving child care subsidy users feeling more
comfortable knowing that their children are being cared
for by people they know and whose values they share
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