Reply to The value of “women’s work”

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[quote=Anonymous]The article starts with a bit of a misrepresentation although the discussion of child care costs is a real one.

While the need for affordable child care is clear, the definition of affordability is not. The most commonly cited definition is the 7% affordability benchmark from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in which child care is considered affordable if it does not exceed 7% of a household’s income. However, as described in the preamble to the 2016 Child Care and Development Fund final rule and recent testimony to the House Education and Labor Committee, [b]this 7% benchmark was never meant to be an affordability metric for all families. Rather, it is a recommendation for how much a low-income, working family receiving a child care subsidy should pay as a co-payment for child care services. [/b]As the current child care market is driven by private pay families, with only 6.4% of children in early childhood education programs receiving public or private subsidies, broadly applying the 7% benchmark overlooks the significant public funding covering the gap between 7% of a family’s income and the price of child care.

The Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act of 2014 requires states to establish a sliding fee scale for parents who receive subsidies in order to share the costs of their child care services. After the bipartisan reauthorization of CCDBG, HHS recommended parental copayments not exceed the benchmark of 7% of a household’s income. HHS chose the 7% benchmark to reflect U.S. Census Bureau data that showed the average percent of monthly income spent by all families on child care stayed consistent at about 7% from 1997 to 2011. Because low-income families disproportionately spend more of their income on child care compared to higher income families, HHS recommended the 7% benchmark in order to achieve parity in child care cost burden. This benchmark only applies to the required copayments required of low-income families receiving a child care subsidy.

Unfortunately, the subsidy scale is based off of FPL limits, up to 200%. And there are glaring issues with the FPL to begin with such as the fact that it has never been updated to reflect 1) modern costs and inflation 2) geographical COL concerns: "never accounted for the explosion in housing, childcare, health care and transportation costs, and it ignores geographic differences that make rent in Jackson, Mississippi a very different reality from rent in New York City or Los Angeles."

This is what anyone who is between the starvation income of FPL limits and an adjusted MC will tell you. Because it doesn't reflect the reality of the current economic markets for housing, food, etc. there is a point where you are better off being extra poor because you receive subsidies compared to making more than the FPL because you are still in starvation limits economically but are expected to pay for everything. Its an abyss.

It also doesnt take into account working household dynamics. A SAHP + working parent making 100k is different than dual working parents making 100k. THe former doesnt pay for childcare nor transport x 1. Couple that with the former living in WV versus DC and its even worse. [/quote]

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