Restore child care subsidy program for families

North Carolina's employment picture is improving, but many jobs being added are in lower paying sectors like food service, hospitality and retail. For working parents, especially single parents, wages from full-time employment in low-wage jobs are not adequate to meet the expenses of housing, transportation, food and child care. For these families, North Carolina's child care subsidy program is a critical workforce support with the double benefit of enhancing child development and education.

The child care subsidy program promotes opportunity and success for working parents and their children. The program provides income-eligible parents that are working or in school a voucher to cover part of the cost of licensed early childhood and after-school learning and care programs. Parents using the voucher stay in the workforce while their children benefit from high quality, dependable care and learning environments.

If you don't have young children in the home, you might be surprised by the cost of quality care and learning centers: $7,000-$10,000 per year for a child. That is more than tuition at local state universities. Without vouchers, many working parents must make difficult choices between work, unemployment, leaving their children in less than ideal arrangements, or paying for care but then not being able to meet other expenses like housing, utilities, transportation and food.

Recently, the North Carolina legislature changed the way the state determines eligibility for child care subsidies, impacting thousands of families across the state that have a voucher. The changes have most severely impacted families with school-age children. According to the state's Fiscal Research Division, 12,000 children were projected to lose their voucher as the eligibility changes are implemented.

Under the previous eligibility requirements, children younger than 13 qualified if their parents earned less than 75 percent of the state median income, or about $50,244 for a family of four. The new program is now tied to the federal poverty level — a family of four with children under the age of six can't make more than $47,700, or 200 percent FPL. For families with school-age children (6-12) the threshold is 133 percent FPL — or $31,721 for a family of four, about $2,643 per month before taxes.

The legislature also set the co-pay families need to contribute to 10 percent of their monthly income. Previously, many families paid less than 10 percent of their income as the fee was based on a sliding scale. The legislature also ended the practice of allowing families to prorate their co-payment if they were only enrolling their child in part-time care, such as an after-school program or a morning-only child care program. For many local parents with school-aged children, this has resulted in a doubling of their co-pay fees if they remain on the voucher.

To put this in perspective, consider that a single parent working a full-time job paying $11 per hour would not qualify for a voucher for her first grader. She would spend up to 33 percent of her monthly income on after-school expenses — leaving a tight budget to meet the rest of her family's basic needs.

This scenario is a reality for many working single mothers living in Asheville. The YWCA of Asheville's School-Age after-school program serves children in kindergarten through 6th grade. Listen to the words of two parents facing difficult decisions due to the recent child care subsidy program changes:

"My daughter and I had increased housing costs and health care costs, and a number of other financial expenditures that are a burden as the only income earner in our family," says Elena, who works at an outpatient mental health clinic and has her 8-year-old enrolled in the YWCA school-age program. "In January, when I lose my subsidy, I will need to take on more work, or find another job, or begin sending my daughter home as a 'latchkey kid' at 8 years old."

Jasmine, who works in the medical industry, says, "I am a hard-working mother who has had vouchers since my oldest was born and I have been able to work my way up. With my vouchers being taken away, I could go backwards. This choice of the legislature is going to have more families in poverty, and more children could be neglected because they might be left at home or somewhere where it is not safe."

You can help. Join us in asking your state legislators to restore school-age eligibility and the ability to pay reduced rates for part-time programs. You can find your legislator's contact information at ncleg.net. Together we can make sure that working parents have access to quality care and learning environments for their children. That's an equation for stronger families and a stronger North Carolina.

Greg Borom is director of advocacy at Children First/Communities in Schools of Buncombe County.