- Operators: State subsidy drives families into low-quality day care, By S. Heather Duncan, August 23, 2010, Macon Telegraph: “Day care providers say the state of Georgia is depressing the day care market and leaving poor families with no choice but to attend the worst day cares. The state pays most of the cost of day care for eligible low-income families by directly reimbursing the day care provider. The state sets that reimbursement payment based on geography and a study of day care rates in the local market. Federal rules require that the state survey the day care market every two years, but Georgia last conducted a survey in 2005 – and last increased its reimbursement in 2006. Congress is now considering a large increase in child care assistance funding. Day care owners say the state should use any new funding to increase its reimbursement rates…”
- Day care assistance funds drying up as need deepens, By S. Heather Duncan, August 23, 2010, Macon Telegraph: “For parents such as Vanita Adams, government help with day care costs made the difference between employment and welfare. Adams, who works as a parent aide for the Macon-Bibb Equal Opportunity Council, received a state subsidy to help her send her two sons to after-school care for about a year. ‘I was separated when it started, and becoming a one-income household was very hard,’ she said. Her divorce was eliminating some of the child care help she had received from family members at the same time she lost income through furloughs. ‘Without the help, I probably would have been out of a job,’ Adams said. Her plight is common. A quarter of Georgia children younger than age 5 receive some kind of subsidized child care, according to a 2010 report by the Georgia Budget & Policy Institute. And since the recession, demand is higher than ever, child care advocates say…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty