Child care subsidy work requirements during the Biden administration

Work requirements


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This page features information on child care subsidy work requirements during the Biden administration.

Background of child care subsidy work requirements

This section provides information about the history, administration, and work requirements for child care subsidies.

History of child care subsidies

The Social Security Act of 1935 established the Aid to Dependent Children Program (ADC), which created subsidies to help families in which fathers were "deceased, absent, or unable to work," according to the text. ADC was changed to Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) in 1962.^[1]^[2]

AFDC was replaced with two child care grants in the 1990s: the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). CCDF provides funds to assist low-income families in obtaining child care so they can work or attend education and training programs. TANF provides cash payments to help families pay for food, clothing, housing, and other essentials. States can transfer up to 30 percent of TANF funds to supplement CCDF child care initiatives. Families who receive cash assistance from TANF may receive child care funded by CCDF or TANF.^[3]^[4]^[5]

Administration of child care subsidies

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Child Care oversees the distribution of federal CCDF grants and TANF funding to the states. CCDF programs are then administered by states, territories, and tribal governments.^[6]^[7]

Work requirements for child care subsidies

See also: Areas of inquiry and disagreement related to work requirements for public assistance programs

The two main sources of child care subsidies in the U.S. are Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which provides cash assistance to low-income families, and the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), which provides subsidies to assist low-income families with the costs of child care.

TANF work requirements

TANF is a federal block grant program that provides funding to states, which administer benefits and set program rules within federal guidelines. Federal law requires states to meet minimum work participation rates among families receiving assistance. States that fail to meet these rates may face financial penalties. Individual state policies that are aimed at keeping states compliant with the federal work participation rates vary greatly. States may require families to work a certain number of hours per week, may create individual plans with families, may have broader or narrower definitions of work activities, may offer different exemptions, or have different sanctioning practices. Ballotpedia doesn't currently cover these state-level variations in TANF policy.^[8]

The two federally-set work participation rates for TANF are the all-families rate and the two-parent families rate:^[8]

All-families rate: 50% of families receiving TANF must participate in federally defined work activities for at least 30 hours per week.

Two-parent families rate: 90% of families with two parents must participate in work activities for at least 35 hours per week (or 55 combined hours if receiving child care assistance).

Some states are not subject to the two-families rate. This may be because the state does not provide TANF funds to two-parent families, the state uses a simplified payment system that does not differentiate between single-parent and two-parent families, the state provides for two-parent families through Separate State Plans (SSP) that do not use federal funds, or another reason.^[9]

The all-families and two-parent families rates can be adjusted by a caseload reduction credit. States earn these credits if their TANF caseloads have fallen since 2015. Many states have full caseload reduction credits, meaning that their work requirement participation rates are effectively 0% and the state would technically face no penalty if none of the state’s TANF recipients were working. However, that does not necessarily mean that TANF work requirements are not in place or enforced. Caseload reduction credits adjust state-level penalty thresholds, but families are still subject to work rules and possible sanctions from the state.^[10]

Below are maps displaying the caseload reduction credits and the adjusted participation rates for each state:

CCDF work requirements

Federal law requires that parents receiving CCDF child care subsidies work or complete work-related activities. States are responsible for defining the activities that qualify a family for assistance through CCDF, including work requirements, education participation, and community service. Employment is an approved activity for CCDF funding in every state and some states also approve subsidies for parents participating in education and training activities. Working, periods of job search, self-employment, attending job training or education-related activities, foster care, and subsidized guardianship are activities that meet eligibility standards for CCDF subsidies in different states. State agencies have flexibility in determining eligibility for CCDF subsidies, according to HHS regulations.^[11]^[12]^[13]

Below is a map showing the number of hours of work activities that qualify families for assistance through CCDF in each state: