Fitzsimon File

The latest figures from the state show that 27,597 children are currently on the waiting list for a day care subsidy. Their families qualify, but the program does not have enough money to provide the help. That means thousands of mothers cannot go back to school or enter the work force in a low-wage job to get experience that could lead to a better paying job. They are stuck in poverty because they cannot afford care for their child.

The average rate for childcare for a three-year-old is close to $7,000 a year. A parent working full time making minimum wage earns $10,700 a year. That’s why the day care subsidy program exists, and why it is so troubling that it is so dramatically underfunded. Lawmakers found just $3.6 million for the program this past session, not enough to keep the waiting list from growing. That is despite leaving more than $100 million unspent, even after putting $200 million in the state’s savings account.

State human services officials are doing the best they can, allocating the limited resources to counties based on a formula and trying to help at-risk counties the most. It means that many counties are getting less money this year than last and that waiting lists are growing, now up to 259 children in Edgecombe County. In some counties, the waiting list never shortens. When a family no longer gets the subsidy, the next child on the list doesn’t receive it. The slot itself disappears.

These are the families struggling every month to make ends meet, and families that want to improve their lives. Eighty-two percent of the children who receive the subsidy live in families with incomes of less than $25,000. Ninety-three percent of the day care subsidy money helps make it possible for a parent to work or go to school to be better equipped to get a job. The other seven percent pays for services for children with special needs and their families. The subsidy program requires families to pay part of the cost for child care too, as much as 10 percent of their income in some cases. This is not a handout.

Stories like one detailed in a Raleigh paper earlier this year are not uncommon. A Raleigh woman makes $23,000 as a year as processing assistant and has two children. She brings home $650 dollars every two weeks and pays $610 it for day care for her two kids. She constantly borrow moneys from her family. It is the only way she can keep her job. Her children have been on the waiting list for nine months.

One of the promises made by reformers of the public assistance programs was that along with tough new requirements would come assistance for people trying to help themselves. That was hailed as the way "end welfare as we know it" and it seemed to make sense.

People who want to go to work or go back to school to get a better job are trying desperately to help themselves and their families. But they can’t because of a broken promise, because the state refuses to invest in people who want to lift themselves out of poverty. Investing in childcare means less poverty, fewer kids struggling in school, more families with more income, less spending on other state programs that provide services.

No one expects the General Assembly to find the money to eliminate the waiting list overnight. But we all should expect at least plan to end it, and money to make substantial progress soon.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 28th, 2005 at 9:08 am and is filed under Fitzsimon File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.