New NWLC Report on State Uses of American Rescue Plan Funds
The National Women’s Law Center is pleased to share their new report, Child Care Rescue: How States Are Using Their American Rescue Plan Act Child Care Funds. The report focuses on how states are using their supplemental discretionary Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) funds provided through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), and includes some state data on ARPA child care stabilization grants. The report shows that states have used their ARPA child care funds for innovative and important strategies and activities to increase families’ access to affordable, high-quality care and to improve child care workers’ compensation and job conditions—yet states will not be able to address remaining gaps in our child care system, or even sustain progress made thus far, without significant new long-term federal and state investments.
As you know, the COVID pandemic placed immense pressure on an already fragile child care system. Recognizing that the child care system was on the brink of collapse, and the drastic consequences for children, families, and our economy if that were to happen, Congress included significant new funding for child care in ARPA, signed into law by President Biden in March 2021. ARPA provided $14.99 billion in supplemental CCDBG discretionary funds and $23.975 billion for child care stabilization grants and increased annual mandatory CCDBG funding by $3.55 billion.
This report provides state-by-state descriptions of how states are using or plan to use ARPA child care discretionary funds to support a range of important purposes, such as:
Supporting the child care workforce through initiatives to boost compensation, increase recruitment and retention, and/or expand professional development opportunities.
Expanding access to child care assistance, by increasing the income limit, broadening eligibility in other ways, serving families on the waiting list, or other steps.
Raising provider payment rates, increasing or adding tiered payment rates for higher-quality care, adopting higher payment rates for specialized care, and/or improving payment practices.
Waiving or reducing copayments for families receiving child care assistance.
Increasing the supply of child care, often with a focus on those types of care or communities with the most acute shortages.
Expanding early childhood mental health services.
While this report is primarily focused on how states are using their ARPA child care discretionary funds, the report also provides state-by-state data on the number and types of providers receiving ARPA child care stabilization grants and the average or range of grant amounts. The report finds that, thus far, over 200,000 providers have received grants. Slightly over half of the grant recipients (51 percent) are child care centers, 42 percent are family child care homes, 4 percent are license-exempt relatives and home-based providers (family, friend, and neighbor care providers), and the remaining 3 percent are other types of providers.