Getting Help with Child Care Expenses

An Urban InstituteProgram to AssessChanging Social PoliciesOccasional Paper Number 62Assessingthe NewFederalismGetting Help with Child CareExpensesLinda GiannarelliSarah AdelmanStefanie SchmidtThe Urban InstituteGetting Help with Child CareExpensesLinda GiannarelliSarah AdelmanStefanie SchmidtThe Urban Institute Getting Help with Child CareExpenses Linda GiannarelliSarah AdelmanStefanie SchmidtThe Urban InstituteOccasional Paper Number 62The Urban Institute2100 M Street, NWWashington, DC 20037Phone: 202.833.7200Fax: 202.429.0687E-mail: paffairs@ui.urban.orghttp://www.urban.orgAssessingthe NewFederalismAn Urban InstituteProgram to AssessChanging Social Policies Copyright © February 2003. The Urban Institute. All rights reserved. Except for short quotes, no part of this paper maybe reproduced in any form or utilized in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the Urban Institute.This report is part of the Urban Institute’s Assessing the New Federalism project, a multiyear effort to monitor and assessthe devolution of social programs from the federal to the state and local levels. Alan Weil is the project director. Theproject analyzes changes in income support, social services, and health programs. In collaboration with Child Trends, theproject studies child and family well-being.This paper received direct funding from The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The Assessing the NewFederalismproject is currently supported by The Annie E. Casey Foundation, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and The Ford Foundation.The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration.The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or itsfunders. The authors gratefully acknowledge the significant contributions of Gina Adams, Freya Sonenstein, and Matthew Stagnerto the analysis and interpretation of these data. We thank Helen Blank, Christine Johnson-Staub, Joan Lombardi, MarciaMeyers, Karen Tvedt, and Sheila Zedlewski for their review of this paper and their very helpful comments. About the SeriesAssessing the New Federalism is a multiyear Urban Institute project designed to analyze thedevolution of responsibility for social programs from the federal government to the states,focusing primarily on health care, income security, employment and training programs, andsocial services. Researchers monitor program changes and fiscal developments. In collabora-tion with Child Trends, the project studies changes in family well-being. The project aimsto provide timely, nonpartisan information to inform public debate and to help state andlocal decisionmakers carry out their new responsibilities more effectively.Key components of the project include a household survey, studies of policies in 13 states,and a database with information on all states and the District of Columbia, available at theUrban Institute’s web site. This paper is one in a series of occasional papers analyzing infor-mation from these and other sources. ContentsExecutive SummaryviiIntroduction1The NSAF Data2Understanding Child Care Help2What Percentage of Families Gets Help?4What Types of Help Are Most Common?6How Do the Types of Help Vary by Income Level?8Among Low-Income Families, How Do the Types of Help Vary by Family Characteristics?11What is the Relationship between Getting Help and Paying for Child Care?13At Current Levels of Help, How Much Do Families Pay for Child Care?15Does the Incidence of Child Care Help Change from 1997 to 1999?18Summary and Conclusions19Notes21References24Appendix A: State-Level Results25Appendix B: Identifying and Categorizing Child Care Help34About the Authors41 GETTING HELP WITH CHILD CARE EXPENSESTHE URBANINSTITUTEExecutive SummaryWorking families with children find different ways to cope with the high cost ofnonparental child care. Families may obtain help from relatives, the governmentand other organizations, employers, nonresident parents, or other individuals. Insome cases, families are able to use nonparental child care without paying anything—for instance, by participating in a program that does not require a parental payment,or by having a relative care for the children without payment. Other families gethelp with part of their child care bill but still have some child care expenses.This analysis explores how much help employed families get with child careexpenses and the types of help they receive. The findings are presented for allemployed families as a whole and for different groups of families—low-income fam-ilies, families with preschool-age children, and so on. The paper also examines therelationship between child care help and child care expenses.The analysis is based on the N