Child Care - 12/6 Event

PRESIDENT CLINTON CALLS ON CONGRESS TO FINISH THEIR WORK TO HELP WORKING FAMILIES MEET THEIR NEED FOR CHILD CARE December 6, 2000 (??) Today, President Clinton will release two reports showing that low-income working families are struggling with the high cost of child care and federal child care subsidies fall far short of meeting the demand of eligible families. The President will also use the opportunity to again call on Congress to finish the work it has left undone for nearly two months, work that included an $817 million increase in federal child care subsidies and a $1 billion increase in Head Start. America's working families should not have to wait any longer to have access to affordable, quality child care for their children. QUALITY CHILD CARE IS TOO EXPENSIVE FOR MOST LOW-INCOME WORKING FAMILIES: The President will release a report by the Children's Defense Fund, which shows that the cost of child care is the greatest barrier low-income families face in finding quality child care for their children, care families rely on to enable them to work and to provide early education experiences for their children. In fact, the report points out that the average cost of child care for a 4-year old in an urban area is more than the average annual cost of public college tuition. This high cost provides little choice for low-income families, forcing many families to choose lower-cost and often lower-quality care for their children. CHILD CARE SUBSIDIES ARE WORKING, BUT MORE NEEDS TO BE DONE: The President will also release an interim report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is part of a five-year research effort to explore how states and communities implement policies and programs to meet the child care needs of families moving from welfare to work. This report shows that in the three-years since the enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, states have provided child care to [hundreds of thousands??] more children. In fact, 12 of the 15 states studied experienced over 30 percent growth in the number of children receiving child care subsidies. The report demonstrates, however, that even with this increased investment in child care there remains a significant unmet need for child care subsidies - most states were only serving 15-20 percent of eligible children from all federal and state sources. CONGRESS SHOULD FINISH ITS BUSINESS IN SUPPORT OF AMERICA'S CHILDREN AND FAMILIES: Today, the President urged Congress to finish their work to ensure that America's hardest working families have access to affordable, quality child care. Before Congress left town two months ago, they had reached a bipartisan agreement with the Clinton Administration to provide an $817 million increase for the Child Care and Development Block Grant to bring it to $2 billion. This increase would enable the program to provide child care subsidies for nearly 150,000 more children in 2001. With these new resources, combined with the child care funds provided in welfare reform, the program could serve over 2.2 million children in 2001, an increase of nearly 1 million since 1997. The Child Care and Development Block Grant is the primary federal effort to help low-income families pay for child care, helping low-income parents to work. The final negotiations with Congress also included $272 million for improving the quality of child care, $100 million of which must be used to improve the quality of infant and toddler care; $10 million for child care research; and $19 million for school- aged care and to improve information for parents about child care in their communities.