Poster #94 - How Georgia's Child Care Subsidy Program Shapes Families' Child Care Satisfaction

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Abstract

States use child care subsidy programs to lower the cost of care for families with low incomes and sustain the supply of affordable child care. To best accomplish this goal, states must have a sufficient supply of care that meets families’ care needs. Much research has examined the types of child care that subsidy recipients use, but little is known about how subsidy participation is related to families’ perception of that care.

We conducted a representative survey of over 1,500 families who had a subsidy in the first half of 2025, employing a systematic sampling approach based on the last date of subsidy participation to capture both current and former subsidy participants. Using regression analysis, we examine reported satisfaction with care overall as well as across multiple dimensions of that care. Our analytic sample includes 1,291 families using subsidies and 281 families not using subsidies to pay for care. We supplement these findings with responses to open-ended survey questions to help contextualize and explain differences.

Preliminary findings indicate that families who use subsidies to pay for their children’s care report higher levels of satisfaction, both overall and across specific elements of care, including cost, accessibility, and supporting children’s development. However, general satisfaction with care appears to be driven by families’ satisfaction with cost and how child care supports their child’s development, rather than subsidy use itself. We found overall satisfaction is not related to whether the care is paid for by a subsidy or the age of the child in care once these factors are considered. We will extend these analyses by linking survey findings to administrative data to examine how characteristics of care settings, including type, location, quality, and whether the focal child had a disability related to families’ reported satisfaction with their care, as well as whether families use subsidies to access different types and quality of care.

While families using subsidies reported higher satisfaction with their child care providers, these differences are driven by specific care elements rather than the use of a subsidy to pay for that care. With subsidy programs designed to increase access to care that meets families’ needs, these findings suggest that in this state context, subsidy receipt does not necessarily influence whether families’ needs are met. However, families may be able to access care that is affordable and supports their child’s development regardless of subsidy receipt, indicating a strong supply of child care. When we incorporate characteristics of the overall supply of care in our analyses—including provider type and quality—we may find that subsidy participation influences the type of care families can access, which in turn may drive families’ care satisfaction. These associations would suggest that subsidy participation plays a role in families’ ability to access care, either improving the quality of care they access or limiting the supply of providers available to them. Policymakers should in turn consider how to support the supply of care that is available to families using subsidies so that it meets their needs.

Author

• Elli Nikolopoulos, Urban Institute
  Presenting Author