Subsidized Child Care Policy and Single Mothers’ Work Pathways: A Study in Alabama, California, and Wisconsin

• In Event: 50466 - Public Policies, Family Dynamics and Well-being

Abstract

The prevailing view of work-family policy in the United States is that it presents an impossible mandate for mothers: work and care without help. However, Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) policies present a key counterexample. Public investment in child care subsidies has in fact grown steadily to over $11 billion in 2023 since the reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act in 2014, whose principal goal is “to promote economic self-sufficiency for low-income families.” The design of subsidized child care policies presumes the interdependence of work and family spheres for low-income families and provides support for child care while parents work. In the case of the child care subsidy program, most recipients are working single mothers.

However, access to child care subsidies is unequally distributed both within and between states in the U.S.. Within states, access to child care subsidies is bounded by income thresholds and work or schooling requirements as well as administrative capacity. Between states, as social provision in general is increasingly characterized by decentralization, states retain authority over the design and implementation of child care subsidies and, ultimately, whether state program rules are more or less strict than federal guidelines about income and work. As a result, the public care infrastructure looks different from state to state.

This study examines whether, how, and where child care subsidy policies are meeting their goal of promoting economic self-sufficiency through work for single mothers in Alabama, California, and Wisconsin through the following research questions: (1) How does using or not being able to use state child care subsidies shape low-income single mothers’ work pathways, care arrangements, and their ideals about work, self-sufficiency, and social assistance? (2) How do these relationships vary or not by state?

Author

• Anne Kou, New York University