Study: Working Mothers Pay $14 Billion for Child Care

Working mothers spent $14 billion in 1986 on care for children younger than 15, with poor women paying disproportionately high percentages of their family income, the U.S. Census Bureau reported.

In the most detailed survey of working women’s child-care arrangements yet conducted, the bureau spotlighted disparities that are fueling a drive on Capitol Hill toward some kind of child-care help for poor families.

About one-third of the 18.2 million working mothers with children under 15 made cash payments for child care, paying on average $45 a week, or 6% of their monthly family income, the survey found. But women in poverty who paid for child care devoted 22% of their income--about $32 a week--to it.

More than 29 million children--9 million of them younger than age five--had mothers who worked full or part time in 1986, said Martin O’Connell, chief of the Census Bureau’s fertility statistics branch. There are now 52 million children under age 15 in the U.S. population, he said.

A $750 Tax Credit

While both parties support helping financially struggling families pay for child care, two competing Senate bills use different methods for reaching the same goal, and the debate has split largely along partisan lines.

Most Senate Democrats and a few Republicans support the $1.75-billion “Act for Better Child Care,” known as ABC. Along with tax credits and refunds, the ABC would subsidize low-income parents with children in day care and set up programs to improve the quality and availability of child-care services.

Most Republicans support a plan that gives up to a $750 tax credit to families with small children, whether or not the mothers work, and provides $400 million a year for block grants to help states expand and improve services.

ABC supporters said the Census Bureau survey illustrated why the government must channel more money toward day care. While the poorest women in the survey paid $32 a week, the wealthiest families, with income of more than $3,750 a month--paid $58 a week.

“I’d be concerned about what (the women in poverty) are buying,” said Helen Blank, director of child care for the Children’s Defense Fund. “Poor people are stretching all they can. I don’t think poor people prefer the cheapest day care.”

But William Maddox, director of policy analysis for the Family Research Center, said the survey is misleading because it focuses solely on working mothers. When both working and non-working mothers are considered, he said, “Less than one child in five is in a paid care situation.”

TV as Babysitter

Maddox also said the poorest families may pay less because they rely on church-subsidized day care or pay for fewer hours. The survey found that only 21% of poor mothers paid for child-care services of any kind. The center supports tax credits for poor families with children regardless of whether the mother works.

Based on a weighted statistical survey of 1,650 working mothers conducted nationwide between September and November, 1986, the survey also found that 28% of children under five whose mothers work are cared for in their own home, while 42% are cared for in someone else’s home and 21% are in formal day-care facilities.

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), who introduced the ABC bill, said these statistics underscored the need for the ABC. “If you’re putting (children) in someone else’s home, often you’re putting them in front of a television set. You’re not putting them in the kind of environment you’d like.”

The survey also identified important seasonal differences in the way mothers care for children aged five to 14. During the school year, 70% of these children were in school while their mothers worked, and 5% cared for themselves, the survey found. But in the summer, 13.2% of the five to 14 year olds--or an extra 1.6 million children-- were on their own.