‘90s Family : Who’s Minding...

Most child-advocacy organizations are concerned about the welfare reform before Congress. “The idea that politicians want families to work is pretty hokey when you look at how they are taking away the safety measures that protect children,” says Helen Blank, director of child care for the Children’s Defense Fund.

Hopes for the betterment of conditions for children were raised in 1990 when billions of dollars were authorized by Congress to help low-income working families pay for child care, improve the quality of care and expand the supply over five years. But now such aspirations are dashed as politicians push for deep cuts and work to shift funds from low-income working families to nonworking welfare recipients who, under the anticipated reform, would be forced into the workplace after two years of assistance.

“We don’t know what will be left for the working poor, who are one job away from welfare,” Blank says. “Unless there are adequate child-care dollars included in welfare reform legislation, states will force limited child-care assistance on welfare families, leaving working poor families with no help at all. The waiting list for [subsidized care] in California is so long that a family’s kids will be in college by the time their name comes up.”

Blank and other child-care policy wonks cite a number of adverse effects expected from cuts in welfare and cuts in child-care subsidies. The most alarming is the effective deregulation of child-care centers that receive public money, Blank says.

“This is a huge step backward,” she says. In the current bill, “There is no requirement that publicly funded care meet basic health and safety protections.”

The bill proposes spending $17 billion on child care over seven years, less money than what is needed for the number of welfare mothers who will be required to go to work, according to the Children’s Defense Fund.

“We cannot serve more children with less money,” says Alice Walker Duff, executive director of Crystal Stairs in Los Angeles, a state-funded resource and referral agency. “If any welfare reform is to work, more money for child care is needed. The proposed massive cuts in welfare will require mothers with young children on welfare to work, but where is the child-care money coming from? Are mothers to leave their children unattended? Are people expected to take care of their children for free?”

Blank and Duff fear that states will try to cut corners, providing child care to more children but skimping on the quality of care. State and federal dollars that fund training programs for child-care workers and support resource and referral agencies are also expected to be cut.

In addition, federal funds that feed about 260,000 children a day in California day-care centers, family-care homes and Head Start programs are expected to be slashed drastically. It’s possible that these funds will be eliminated in many states. For many children, those meals are the most nutritious of the day.