Working Families
Access to affordable, reliable, and high-quality early learning and child care opportunities provides working families with better job stability and overall economic security.
Here are five things to know about child care and working families.
- Child care prices are untenable across all program types, age groups, and geographic locations. In 2021, the cost of infant care ranged from 24.6% to 75.1% of income for single-parent households.
- Child care helps parents return to or stay at work, which can generate an additional $94,000 in lifetime earnings for mothers.
- Almost half of parents are absent from work at least once every six months due to child care issues.
- 74% of mothers and 66% of fathers have left work early, arrived late, or been absent because child care fell through at the last minute.
- In a recent poll, 59% of part-time or non-working parents say they would go back to work full-time if their child had access to quality child care at a reasonable cost.
Learn more:
Posts
The First Five Things to Know: The Child Care and Development Block Grant
Millions of families need child care in order to work, but many simply can’t afford it. This leads to parents having to reduce the number of hours they work or …
Child Care and Development Block Grant: From Funding to Families
Child Care and Development Block Grant program funding goes to lead agencies in all 50 states, territories, and tribes to help low-income parents afford child care while they work or …
How CCDBG Benefits Families in Your State
The Child Care & Development Block Grant (CCDBG) is the primary federal grant program that provides child care assistance to low-income working families with children under age 13. The majority …
NIEER Report Shows Importance of Including Family Child Care Programs in Publicly-Funded Pre-K
The National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) recently released “Including Family Child Care (FCC) Programs in Publicly-Funded Pre-K: Conditions for Success”, a report demonstrating the benefits of including family …
Biden Doubles Down on Child Care Priorities Through Executive Order
Last week, President Biden took an important step in strengthening his commitment to fix our nation’s child care system. Through executive order (EO), Biden is directing nearly every Cabinet- level …
Stanford Study: One in Four Child Care Workers Reports Difficulty Affording Housing
With many of our nation’s early educators trying to survive on poverty-level salaries, a new Stanford study has found that one out of every four child care workers experiences difficulties …
One Big Thing: Equal Pay and Child Care
A new report by Wells Fargo has found that a majority of women in the United States — a record 52 percent — were unmarried in 2021. The study pointed …
The First Five Things to Know: Impact of the Child Care Crisis on Women & Mothers
Over the past several years, the U.S. has altered the landscape of motherhood, piling on even more new pressures and demands. The ongoing child care crisis is keeping women out …
New Funding Opportunity for Tribal MIECHV
Earlier this month, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) announced a grant opportunity for tribes to access funding for the FY 2023 Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting …
The State of Child Care Ahead of SOTU
As President Biden prepares to deliver his second State of the Union, and first to a divided Congress, First Five Years Fund (FFYF) has put together a state-of-play on a …
BLS Report Finds Price of Child Care “Untenable for All Families”
WASHINGTON – A new report by the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Women’s Bureau had a striking conclusion: The cost of child care is untenable for families across …
The Necessity of MIECHV Reauthorization: Economic Benefit
The fourth and final part of FFYF’s blog series on the necessity of MIECHV reauthorization focuses on economic impacts. Given the evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of MIECHV, the program presents …
