July 25, 2003

STATE-BY-STATE DISTRIBUTION OF A $5.5 BILLION INCREASE IN CHILD CARE
By Sharon Parrott

PDF of this report View Related Analyses

More Topics... Back to Home Page Search the Site  - Publications by Subject  - Upcoming Releases  - Unemployment Insurance About the Center  - Board of Directors  - Internship Programs  - Job Opportunities  - Staff Bios Special Projects  - DC Fiscal Policy Institute  - International Budget Project  - State Fiscal Analysis Initiative  - State Policy Documentation Project  - Start Healthy/Stay Healthy Join E-Mail List Donate to the Center

If you cannot access the files through the links, right-click on the underlined text, click "Save Link As," download to your directory, and open the document in Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee recently released a proposal for TANF reauthorization legislation that includes increases in both the work participation rates states must meet and the number of hours recipients must participate in work activities in order to count fully toward those rates.  Child care funding is not addressed in the Grassley proposal and, along with several other issues, remains an open and important issue in the reauthorization debate.

Last year’s Senate Finance Committee TANF reauthorization bill — which was approved with strong bipartisan support — provided an additional $5.5 billion in mandatory child care funding over five years.  A recent analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Center for Law and Social Policy found that without at least this level of additional funding, hundreds of thousands of child care slots for low-income working families will be lost over the next five years, even if the TANF work rates were not increased.[1]  If the TANF work rates also are increased — and thus, the cost of meeting those rates goes up as well — still more resources are necessary to ensure that low-income working families do not lose access to child care over the next several years.  This is because states will be forced to devote more of their TANF and child care block grants to funding these new work mandates and the child care costs associated with them — leaving fewer and fewer resources to spend on child care for working families not receiving TANF.

The following table shows how much each state would receive in additional child care funding if mandatory funding for the child care block grant were increased by $5.5 billion over the next five years.  (The figures in the chart represent five-year totals.)  The chart assumes these additional resources are distributed using the same formula as in House-passed TANF bill (which provided a scant $1 billion in additional child care resources to states) and which is used under current law to distribute the majority of the mandatory child care funding, with one minor modification.[2]  The state allocations would change, of course, if the Finance Committee decided to use a different distribution formula.  (It also should be noted that last year’s Senate Finance Committee bill did not require states to provide state matching funds to draw down the additional federal resources, in recognition of current state fiscal conditions.)

Table 1:
State-by-State Distribution of a $5.5 Billion Increase
In Mandatory Child Care Funding

State	Total Increased Child Care Funding Over 2004-2008 Period
Alabama	$82,200,000
Alaska	$13,800,000
Arizona	$102,400,000
Arkansas	$49,500,000
California	$693,600,000
Colorado	$81,100,000
Connecticut	$62,800,000
Delaware	$14,400,000
District of Columbia	$8,700,000
Florida	$267,700,000
Georgia	$161,200,000
Hawaii	$21,900,000
Idaho	$26,700,000
Illinois	$240,500,000
Indiana	$116,000,000
Iowa	$52,900,000
Kansas	$51,800,000
Kentucky	$73,000,000
Louisiana	$87,700,000
Maine	$21,300,000
Maryland	$100,400,000
Massachusetts	$111,500,000
Michigan	$191,200,000
Minnesota	$93,100,000
Mississippi	$56,300,000
Missouri	$103,700,000
Montana	$16,100,000
Nebraska	$32,300,000
Nevada	$38,900,000
New Hampshire	$22,600,000
New Jersey	$156,300,000
New Mexico	$36,500,000
New York	$347,500,000
North Carolina	$146,900,000
North Dakota	$11,300,000
Ohio	$211,100,000
Oklahoma	$64,500,000
Oregon	$61,600,000
Pennsylvania	$212,200,000
Rhode Island	$18,300,000
South Carolina	$74,200,000
South Dakota	$14,400,000
Tennessee	$103,400,000
Texas	$434,400,000
Utah	$53,100,000
Vermont	$10,500,000
Virginia	$128,100,000
Washington	$110,700,000
West Virginia	$28,800,000
Wisconsin	$98,200,000
Wyoming	$9,000,000
Total	$5,500,000,000

---

End Notes:

[1] See “New Child Care Resources Are Needed To Prevent the Loss Of Child Care Assistance For Hundreds Of Thousands Of Children In Working Families,” by Sharon Parrott and Jennifer Mezey, July 2003, https://www.cbpp.org/7-15-03tanf.htm.

[2] Unlike H.R. 4, the distribution formula used to calculate the figures in the chart assumes that the set-asides for tribes and Puerto Rico that were included in last year’s Senate Finance Committee bill would be included in this year’s bill as well.  These provisions were uncontroversial last year and affect the figures very modestly.