New TANF Work Rules Increase Need for Child Care Assistance for TANF and Low-Income Working Families

For more information, contact
Sarah Wayne at NAEYC
202-232-8777 ext. 8841 or swayne@naeyc.org

WASHINGTON, June 29, 2006 – New regulations issued this week by the Administration to make work requirements more stringent for people receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) are incongruent with the funding for child care for TANF families, and for low-income working families who need affordable child care to avoid becoming TANF families..

“Affordable, quality and stable child care is the linchpin for working families, whether they are meeting TANF work requirements or low income working families. Yet over a five year period, funding for child care assistance is $11 billion short of what is needed to maintain current services and meet the new needs created by the new TANF work requirements,” said Mark Ginsberg, Ph.D., Executive Director of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). “Given the ratcheting up of requirements in TANF and the failure to provide sufficient child care assistance, we fear that states will be faced with the dilemma of shifting child care subsidies away from low-income working families, compounding their struggle to support their children’s care, health, nutrition, housing, and other needs.”

According to the Administration’s budget figures, approximately 250,000 children of low-income families have lost child care assistance since 2000. Under the Administration’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2007, that number will rise to 650,000 children by fiscal year 2011.

A bipartisan Dear Colleague letter in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate calls for an increase of $540 million in Child Care & Development Block Grant funds this year – a small down-payment on the need. As Congress debates budget and appropriations bills, the needs of our nation’s young children and families should a top priority.

The National Association for the Education of Young Children is the largest and most influential organization of early childhood educators and others dedicated to improving the quality of programs for children from birth through age eight. Founded in 1926, the organization now has nearly 100,000 members, and a national network of over 300 local, state and regional affiliates.

# # #