(Philadelphia, PA) September 19, 2011 – As low-income, working families in the state continue to suffer the effects of the Great Recession, the state Department of Public Welfare (DPW) is preparing next month to increase the cost of copays for families receiving child care subsidy.
Scheduled to go into effect on October 3rd, the General Assembly mandated the hike, ranging from eight to eleven percent of family income. Families receiving child care subsidy will be notified of the increase this week.
The lowest-income earning families (less than $18,530) will be affected the most, with copay increases ranging from 67 to 100 percent. The boost raises the copay for a typical family of three earning 150 percent of the poverty level ($27,795 annual income) from $40 per week to $46.
The impact of this cost increase to struggling families “will be devastating, causing parents to leave their jobs in order to care for children, or to place children in unsupervised or substandard settings while they work,” predicts Christie Balka, Advocacy Director at Public Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY).
Serving approximately 136,000 children each month, Pennsylvania’s child care subsidy program was developed in the late 1990s to help low-income working parents remain in the workforce and move toward financial independence. The copay increases are the consequence of an 11.5 percent cut to the child care subsidy program this year. (The overall state budget was cut 3.4 percent.)
Over the last three years, more families have applied for subsidy and have needed it for longer periods of time, as noted in a newly-released PCCY policy brief, Pennsylvania’s Child Care Subsidy: Strengthening Children, Families and the Economy. At the same time, Pennsylvanian’s median income has dropped 5.7 percent and underemployment has nearly doubled.
“While we say we want parents to work and take care of their children, actions like this by the state make it more difficult for these parents and their children,” says Balka. “Ironically, this is happening at a time when studies show more children are living in poverty than ever before.”