Child and Family Services - Child Care Debate

Child Care Debate

Why are the middle and upper classes getting so much financial help with child care assistance, when the lower class needs the help? Over the last 15 years, federal child care assistance has more than doubled. Poor and low income families, however, have not benefited from this increased spending. Because the most significant child care subsidies are provided through the tax code and not through spending programs, these increases have largely benefited middle- and upper-class families. Lower income families do not benefit because they hardly pay taxes in the first place. One would think that the low income families would need the support the most for their children and it should make it easier to receive help than for the middle to upper class.

Although middle- and upper-class families are at an advantage, the total federal and state funding for child welfare and working families has increased dramatically since the welfare reform, from $2.8 billion in 1995 to $8 billion in 2000. Although it is being made easier now for low income families to benefit from the welfare reform, they are less likely to be enrolled in high quality programs due to uneven access to high quality options in their neighborhoods. Less than one quarter of all eligible families use child care subsidies, and usage varies widely across states and local areas reflecting various barriers to access and scarcity of quality center-based care.

One could also argue that the middle and upper classes are the ones that are paying for the welfare programs through taxes, while the poor are not. Child welfare and income assistance programs serve low income populations. Income assistance is targeted specifically at low income families, and the strong association between poverty and reported child maltreatment means that child welfare agencies deal primarily with low income clientele. However they are not the clientele that are receiving the most funding.

The problem is these funds go increasingly to the least needy among us. A shocking proportion of these funds go to middle and upper income families: Nearly half go to families with incomes above the median. In 1985, less than 1% went to families with adjusted gross incomes below $10,000, and only 13% of adjusted gross incomes below $15,000. So few lower income families can benefit from the credit and less than half of all working mothers claim it.

Since the lower class endures financial strain, this leads to child maltreatment. Parents are giving their children the bare minimum for survival in hope that the government won’t take their children out of the home. The welfare agencies would rather take the children out of their homes and put them in foster agencies which costs almost triple the amount that the parents would need for their children to be healthy and happy if they were just cut a check every month.

Perhaps child care should be universally-available to all families, regardless of their income—like public schools. But that is a long run question, as the proper role of the federal government is establishing such a system, which would call for an enormous increase of public spending. U.S. citizens do not want to pay more taxes, and the middle to upper classes would in tern be paying for universal child care…which they previously were receiving money for anyway.