How state policies might affect Hispanic families’ access to and use of Child Care and Development Fund subsidies

FamiliesOct 7 2019

The Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) is a federal and state partnership that provides child care assistance, in the form of subsidies, to low-income, working families with children under age 13. These subsidies help low-income families access early care and education (ECE) for their children and support parental work or participation in education and training activities. Through their policies, states have discretion to determine who is eligible or prioritized to receive CCDF subsidies; states also play a role in managing how policy requirements are implemented in practice. These state-level policies and practices shape families’ decisions and behaviors—that is, they may facilitate or interfere with families’ use of CCDF subsidies.

This infographic highlights some of the findings from a recently published study that examined information from three publicly available sources—the CCDF Policies Database, CCDF grantee state plans for federal fiscal years 2016–2018, and lead agency websites for each state. The study explores state-level variation in policies and practices regarding CCDF eligibility requirements, household and work documentation requirements, prioritization of TANF recipients, and availability of program information online in Spanish. This review depicts how some features of CCDF policies (as of June 2016) and practices (as of July 2018) might shape access to CCDF subsidies for Hispanic families in 13 states. This infographic highlights three of the policy and practice dimensions included in the study: 1) minimum weekly work requirements, 2) household documentation requests, and 3) the availability of information about the program and application process in Spanish. These features may be especially relevant for immigrant and mixed-status (i.e., families in which one or more members of the household are not U.S. citizens) Hispanic families.

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