WORKING FAMILIES AND GROWING KIDS:
BEYOND RHETORIC –
POLICY SOLUTIONS THAT SUPPORT
WORKING FAMILIES AND CHILDREN
A Discussion with
Researchers from the
National Research
Council's new publication:
Working Families and
Growing Kids-Caring for
Children and Adolescents
Event Sponsored by the New America Foundation
Report Overview
Jennifer Gootman
National Academy of Sciences
jgootman@nas.edu
Presented at the Congressional briefing on Work
and Family Policies and Child Development
Dirksen Senate Building, Room 562
May 14, 2004
Committee on Family and
Work Policies
Eugene Smolensky (Chair),
University of California, Berkeley
Suzanne Bianchi, University of
Maryland, College Park
David Blau, University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill
Francine Jacobs, Tufts University
Robin Jarrett, University of
Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Donna Klein, Marriott
International
Sanders Korenman, Baruch
College
Joan Lombardi, The Children’s
Project
Joseph Mahoney, Yale University
Harriett Presser, University of
Maryland, College Park
Gary Sandefur, University of
Wisconsin, Madison
Deborah Vandell, University of
Wisconsin, Madison
Jane Waldfogel, Columbia
University
Hirokazu Yoshikawa, New York
University
Martha Zaslow, Child Trends
Background
• From Neurons to Neighborhoods (2000)
• Community Programs to Promote Youth
Development (2001)
Pivotal Federal Legislation
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
• 1993
• Established rights of certain workers to jobprotected leave
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act (PRWORA)
• 1996
• TANF provisions made cash assistance for poor
families contingent on employment or
participation in activities to prepare for work
Work Patterns and Effects
of Maternal Employment
Dr. Martha Zaslow
Child Trends
mzaslow@childtrends.org
Presented at the Congressional briefing on Work
and Family Policies and Child Development
Dirksen Senate Building, Room 562
May 14, 2004
Committee Focus
• Low-income families
• Working mothers
Finding
• More Children Have Employed Parents
Maternal Workforce
Participation
80
Percent Employed
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
Findings
• Access to Paid Parental Leave Is Limited
• Children and Adolescents Spend Significant
Time in Nonparental Care
Findings
• Opportunities for Care for Adolescents Are
Limited
• Quality of Care Matters
• Much Child Care Is Not of High Quality or
Developmentally Beneficial
Implications of Work and
Care Trends
• Employment can be neutral or beneficial
• Employment can be negative under
certain circumstances
Federal Work and Family
Policies and the Development
of Children
Dr. Hirokazu Yoshikawa
New York University
hiro.yoshikawa@nyu.edu
Presented at the Congressional briefing on Work and
Family Policies and Child Development
Dirksen Senate Building, Room 562
May 14, 2004
Policies Covered
I. Policies that require work (TANF)
II. Tax policies that require work as a
condition of receiving benefits (EITC,
other tax credits)
III. Policies that provide job-protected
family leave to employees (FMLA)
IV. Child care policies
I.
Temporary Assistance to
Needy Families
(TANF)
TANF: Description
• 1996: Replaced welfare entitlement (AFDC)
with block grants to states; significant state
control.
• Required states to ensure that recipients
engage in work and work-related activities.
• Cumulative 60-month limit on federal
assistance, with some exemptions permitted
to states.
• Made legal immigrants ineligible for TANF
during their first 5 years in the U.S.
TANF: Effects on Parents
• Best evidence: increased rates of
employment among recipients.
• Little evidence on effects on income, though
existing studies suggest small increases.
• A majority of former recipients are working
(average 2/3 across studies).
• Most earn between $6.50 and $8.50 an hour
(13K – 17K / year).
TANF: Effects on Children
and Adolescents
• No direct evidence. But data from 16 experiments testing state
welfare programs just prior to 1996.
• Programs of three types:
– Those that simply mandate employment.
– Those that provide additional income when parents increase
their work effort (earnings supplement programs).
– Those that imposed time limits on welfare receipt.
• Of these program types, only earnings supplement
programs improve children’s school performance and reduce
their acting-out behaviors. No effects for other types.
• Earnings supplement programs increase income to a greater
degree than most current state TANF programs.
How Earnings Supplement
Programs Help Families
Become Self-Sufficient
• Marissa is an unmarried mother of two in her early
twenties. At the time that she signed up for the New
Hope program, she was working part-time in a
pharmacy. “When I started making more money, it
[the earnings supplement] started coming down.
OK, you know, I’m getting up there on my own.”
The earnings supplement was key to her ability to
reach self-sufficiency. Marissa says bluntly of the
program, “I could not be where I am without New
Hope.” (Gibson & Weisner, 2002)
II. Tax Policies Requiring Work
as a Condition of Benefit
Receipt
Tax Policies Requiring Work
as a Condition of Receipt
• Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit ($2.8 billion in
2000).
• Dependent Care Assistance Program ($2.7 billion in
1999).
• Both provide funds for working families to meet child
care expenses.
– CDCTC – provides up to $3,000 of child care expenses
for 1 child, $6,000 for 2 children.
– DCAP – makes portion of earned income tax exempt
• Neither program is refundable. No benefits to families
with incomes too low to pay taxes (e.g., below $15,000 a
year for single mother with 2 children).
Tax Policies Requiring Work
as a Condition of Receipt
• Earned Income Tax Credit ($32 billion in 2001; 86% of
eligible tax filers covered).
• Refundable tax credit providing up to $4,140 (for family
with 2 or more children); nearly all receive as lump sum
instead of monthly.
• Single-parent families with incomes between $10,350 and
$13,550 eligible for maximum (gradual phase-in below,
and phase-out above to $33,178). Slightly higher phaseout for 2-parent families.
• 15 states + DC give additional state tax credits.
Tax Policies: EITC and
Effects on Parents and
Children
• EITC results in increases in single mothers’ employment rates.
• Expansion of the EITC was responsible for more than half of drop in
child poverty between 1993 and 1997.
• Majority of EITC recipients appear to prioritize spending the “tax
check” on children (Romich & Weisner, 2002):
“When my taxes come…then I’ll take the kids
shopping because my kids really need to go shopping,
especially [my older son]. He has no clothes. He needs
clothes…I can’t send my son to school like this. I need to go
shopping for him really bad.”
III. Family Leave Policies
Family Leave Policies
• The 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
• 12 weeks of unpaid leave, for workers who have
worked 1,250 hours or more in past year, but only in
firms with 50 or more employees.
• Only 60% of private sector employees eligible, only
45% actually receive it.
• Young, less educated, and lower-income employees
least likely to be covered by FMLA.
• Less than 5% of employees in the U.S. have access
to paid leave.
FMLA: Effects on Parents
and Children
• Mothers in America return to work much more
quickly after birth than those in other comparable
countries.
• Among 11 comparable countries, US leave policy is
the shortest in duration, and only one that is unpaid.
• Of concern: Newborns whose mothers return to work
full-time within 12 weeks later show lower levels of
cognitive development (Waldfogel, Han, & BrooksGunn, 2002).
IV. Child Care Policies:
(Head Start,
Child Care Development Fund,
TANF-provided child care,
Out-of-School Care)
Head Start / Early Head
Start
• Still in most places a part-day program.
• Much more for 4-year-olds than 0 to 3.
• Higher classroom quality, smaller classes than
non-Head Start preschools in U.S.
• But reaches only about 50 percent of those
eligible.
Child Care Development
Fund (CCDF)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
$7.9 billion in 2001
Children under 13 of working parents.
Lower-income (max 85% of state median)
Certificates (vouchers) and contracts with providers.
Any legal child care provider (licensed or unlicensed).
Health and safety requirements.
4% set-aside for quality improvement.
Reimbursement rates flexible but supposed to be
>=75th percentile of market rates. But most states
set this lower – resulting in lower quality.
TANF-funded Child Care
• Total $3.7 billion, 2001
• Some of these funds ($2.0 billion in 2001)
transferred to CCDF (Schumacher & Rakpraja, CLASP)
• But if not, CCDF rules for quality, health, and
safety do not apply
• Uncertainty about future of TANF, and priorities
for spending within TANF, render long-term child
care planning with these dollars difficult.
State Child Care Regulations
• Child care regulations monitor health and safety,
not full spectrum of what child care researchers
call quality.
• Regulations vary; settings they apply to vary;
monitoring varies.
Out-of-School Care
• 21st-Century Community Learning Centers ($1
billion in 2002): only 6 to 14 year olds.
• Federal and state funding for out-of-school care
piecemeal (National Research Council, 2002).
Effects of Child Care Policies
on Families and Children
• Head Start shows positive effects on immunization rates,
health care, child cognitive school readiness.
• Child care subsidies – predict higher employment and
school enrollment.
• Stricter state child care regulations associated with higher
child care quality, and better child development.
• Proven, successful efforts to improve child care quality
(staff training, pay, monitoring and rating systems), but in
only few states.
• After-school programs with adequate adult supervision,
structured activities show positive effects on adolescent
school performance.
Future Directions and
Policy Options
Dr. Joan Lombardi
The Children’s Project
Lombardij@aol.com
Presented at the Congressional briefing on Work and
Family Policies and Child Development
Dirksen Senate Building, Room 562
May 14, 2004
Primary Goal
• Improve the Quality of Care for Children
and Adolescents in Working Families
Policy Options
• Expand and Increase Access to Head Start
and Early Head Start
• Expand Prekindergarten and Other Early
Education Programs Delivered in CommunityBased Child Care Programs.
• Expand Child Care Subsidies Through QualityRelated Vouchers
• Increase the Availability, Hours, and Quality
of After-School Programs
Policy Options
• Improve Parents’ Ability to Take Leave After
the Birth of a Child, Especially Among LowIncome Parents
• Discourage the Practice of Requiring Mothers
on Welfare to Return to Work Early or Full
Time
• Expand Coverage of the Family and Medical
Leave Act
Research Needs
• Collect National Data on Process Quality
Summary
• More mothers are working.
• Children and adolescents are spending significant
time in nonparental care.
• Quality of care matters—it can either promote or
deter healthy development.
• Care is not always high quality.
• Parents need supports for taking time to care for
children, especially in the first year of life.
Primary Goal: Improve the quality of care for
children and adolescents in working families.
For more information and
copies of the report visit
www.nap.edu