The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides federal grants to states for supplemental foods, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women, and to infants and children up to age 5 who are found to be at nutritional risk.
care child grant single woman
The expense of child care is one of the main obstacles facing mom-athletes who want to stay in the game while raising a family. Our shared belief is that athletes should not have to choose between competition and motherhood.
Funding can be used to offset child care related expenses such as caregiver costs, travel and added costs of bringing children along to competitions, meals and supplies, equipment and medical expenses.
Today, many families with young children must make a choice between spending a significant portion of their income on child care, finding a cheaper, but potentially lower-quality care option, or leaving the workforce altogether to become a full-time caregiver. Whether due to high cost, limited availability, or inconvenient program hours, child care challenges are driving parents out of the workforce at an alarming rate. In fact, in 2016 alone, an estimated 2 million parents made career sacrifices due to problems with child care.2
Child care challenges have become a barrier to work, especially for mothers, who disproportionately take on unpaid caregiving responsibilities when their family cannot find or afford child care.3 In a 2018 survey conducted by the Center for American Progress, mothers were 40 percent more likely than fathers to report that they had personally felt the negative impact of child care issues on their careers.4 Too often, mothers must make job decisions based on child care considerations rather than in the interest of their financial situation or career goals.
This report highlights the relationship between child care and maternal employment and underscores how improving child care access has the potential to boost employment and earnings for working mothers. Based on new analysis of the 2016 Early Childhood Program Participation Survey (ECPP), it demonstrates how families are having difficulty finding child care under the current system and how lack of access to child care may be keeping mothers out of the workforce. The report then presents results from a national poll conducted by the Center for American Progress and GBA Strategies, which asked parents what career decisions they would make if child care were more readily available and affordable. Finally, the report outlines federal policy solutions that are crucial to supporting mothers in the workforce.
The current child care system in the United States is broken. The United States must prioritize the needs of millions of working families and take steps to keep mothers in the workforce through investing in policies to support access to affordable, quality child care.
These programs have demonstrated benefits for promoting maternal labor force participation and positive child outcomes.23 Due to their targeted nature and chronic underfunding, however, only a small portion of families who need assistance paying for child care receive it.
U.S. families with young children are having difficulty finding child care to meet their needs. This analysis finds that half of families who looked for child care in 2016 reported difficulty finding it, and nearly 1 million families never found the program they wanted. (see Table 1)
Overall, families are having difficulty finding child care regardless of their household income, with about half of families across income brackets reporting some degree of difficulty. However, families with incomes of less than $100,000 per year were significantly more likely than higher-income families to say that they were ultimately unable to find the child care program they wanted. (see Table 2)
Single mothers experienced steep drops in employment when they were unable to find a child care program. Specifically, the employment rate fell from 84 percent among single mothers who found a child care program to 67 percent among those who did not. For comparison, employment among mothers in two-parent households decreased from 90 percent to 84 percent when the mother did not find care. Single mothers are often both the primary earner and caregiver in their households, making child care access a necessity for these mothers to remain employed. Without access to formal child care, single mothers typically rely on a patchwork of care from family and friends, which can be difficult to secure consistently. A growing body of research has demonstrated that child care assistance has a substantial impact for single mothers. In fact, child care subsidy receipt and kindergarten enrollment are associated with higher rates of employment and enrollment in job training or education programs among single mothers.38
The current state of child care in the United States is creating a financial squeeze for working families and driving some mothers out of the labor force. Yet when asked to envision a world in which they had affordable, reliable child care, mothers overwhelmingly said that they would make changes to increase their earnings and seek new job opportunities. Results from a nationally representative poll conducted by CAP and GBA Strategies in June 2018 suggest that increasing access to affordable and reliable child care could give mothers the flexibility to pursue opportunities that can increase earnings and even allow them to advance at work. (see Table 3)
One-third of parents in part-time work said that they would ask for more hours at work if they had more affordable and reliable child care. (see Table 4) For many parents, that could mean boosting their earnings, transitioning from part-time to full-time work, or moving to a job that provides important benefits and workplace supports.46
Although employers have a role to play in establishing family friendly benefits, and states have been making incremental progress to improve access to child care, federal action is necessary to ensure that all families have access to comprehensive work-family policies.52 Investments of this nature have support from voters across the political spectrum, with 90 percent of Democrats, 70 percent of independents, and 70 percent of Republicans saying that they would support efforts in Congress to increase funding for child care assistance and to expand access to early learning.53
Employment: The original ECPP data set provides child-level data. Before analyzing the impact of child care access on parental employment, the author reshaped the data set to access individual-level data for each parent. This made it possible to evaluate employment and other characteristics among mothers and fathers.
Human Services Center Corporation, $60,000 for the Supports for Success program. Established in 1982 to improve the quality of life for children, adults and families in the Mon Valley area with a focus on high-need communities, Human Services Center is a collaborative leader connecting human service organizations to other agencies that can support their needs and provide resources to their clients. The Supports for Success program, an intensive one-on-one case management program, promotes self-sufficiency by helping participants gain financial management skills, connecting clients to education and training, and helping participants secure living-wage employment. Participants are matched with a social worker who assesses their needs and abilities, leading to the development of a goal plan that considers employment, education, income and asset building, housing, mental and physical health, and civic engagement. The program currently serves 30 people a year, most of them women, and at least half are single women raising children. The program also provides cash assistance to participants to cover expenses, such as transportation costs, that limit participation in the program. Participants also receive a small cash incentive to keep them motivated and involved, while helping meet basic needs.
Latino Community Center, $75,000 to assist single mothers in the Latino community. While the overall population of Allegheny County continues to decline, the Latino community in Allegheny County grew by 28% from 2010 to 2015. Latina women who are single mothers come to the Center with needs ranging from emergency child care, to emergency funding after an unexpected life event (such as detention and/or deportation of the partner) to transportation assistance. The grant will allow the Center to provide wrap-around services for at least 30 single mothers over the next two years. Services will include emergency child care and cash assistance for housing costs, medical expenses, food, clothing and medical bills. The grant will also help build a network of volunteers to assist with transportation for single mothers. Resources will include bilingual materials and YouTube videos, and a series of workshops around financial management, home repairs and maintenance, and credit scores. These programs will also encourage respite and self-care for single mothers.
A Peace of Mind Inc., $25,000, to improve the quality of programming and subsidize tuition for children experiencing poverty at its child carechild care facility in Wilkinsburg. A Peace of Mind was founded in 2013 by two single mothers to provide quality caring therapy. The organization established an early child care and learning center in March 2019. This program currently serves 32 children between the ages of 10 months and 12 years. The organization seeks to significantly improve the quality of its program by implementing assessment tools, purchasing and utilizing a quality curriculum, supporting staff professional development opportunities and strengthening parent engagement. Also planned is a twice-weekly student enrichment activity, such as yoga, American Sign Language, violin, gardening and chess. This grant responds to the lack of child care availability outside of traditional work hours and makes it possible for A Peace of Mind to purchase a high-quality curriculum and assessment materials and subsidize child care for seven children to attend programming during the extended hours. 2ff7e9595c
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